"At one point it was reported that the SEC was arresting people," Chaves said.
Douglas told agents that decades after the movie that won him an Oscar for best actor, he's frequently stopped and greeted as a hero and not a Wall Street villain.
Douglas said he was "startled over the positive response he received as Gordon Gekko," Chaves said. He quoted Douglas saying, "I don't know what's wrong with Wall Street but I would be approached all the time, people would 'high-five' me or shake my hand for being this terrible man who stole people's money. Where are the values? The culture has to change."
Douglas reprised the character in the 2010 sequel, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."
'Staying Away'
Chaves said he hopes the Douglas spot will help deter others. Already, reports from cooperators on Wall Street indicate that the spate of insider-trading prosecutions brought since October 2009 has been a deterrent, he said.
"We're hearing more and more how people are staying away from inside information," Chaves said. "We're still developing cases so there are clearly people out there still breaking the law."
A Bloomberg story about Perfect Hedge in December had cooperators scrambling to contact their FBI handlers, Chaves said.
"After that story, our cooperators were reporting to us that there were people who were deathly afraid that they were going to get that knock on the door from us," he said.