NEW YORK CITY — The SEC has suspended Jonathan Leeson, the owner of a group of highly successful mutual funds in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Leeson and his funds will be barred from all trading in U.S. securities pending further investigation.

Industry analysts were startled by the action against the 36-year-old Leeson, often considered one of Wall Street’s best and brightest. From their headquarters on a lush Caribbean island, his fund managers have always had a knack for picking companies that were unsavory to most other professionals but had large cash reserves, quality products and a sound management team in place.

The SEC’s investigation centers on a relationship between Leeson’s grandfather, Richard, and the great 20th century fund manager Peter Lynch. In 1985 Richard, a colleague of Lynch’s at Fidelity Investments, approached Lynch and asked him if he would give blood for Leeson’s son, who suffered from a rare blood disorder and was in desperate need of a marrow donor. The kindhearted Lynch, always one for charity, consented.

However, officials have found no records of such a blood disorder among any of Leeson’s children. They suspect that the elder Leeson instead preserved the marrow and passed it along to his descendants, in expectation of the advances in cloning technology which finally came to fruition in the early part of this century. In 2039, they allege, Jonathan Leeson used the marrow to breed new Peter Lynches to manage his funds, covering his tracks by cross-breeding the great financier’s DNA with that of horses.

SEC officials note that Leeson’s fund’s name, Centaurus Globus, is Latin for ‘group of centaurs.’ They also cite an apparent joke that Mr. Leeson made to the Wall Street Journal in 2044, which stated, “My managers are all brain but half horse!” SEC officials are not laughing now.

Indeed, their worst suspicions were confirmed last week, when an investigative team visited Leeson’s island. The team found dozens of horse bodies that were melded with the upper body of Peter Lynch. Mr. Leeson had a “crazed look in his eye,” according the team’s report, and he began to shoot a shotgun at them as they approached the edge of his 1,000-acre centaur farm.

“The centaurs became frightened and began an odd chorus of yelling while galloping frantically across the farm,” the report said.

The three-member team finally cornered Leeson behind a tree. He threatened to shoot, but the SEC investigators talked him down.

“We finally were able to reason with him,” recalled one of the investigators. “We said, ‘Think of what Peter Lynch stood for. He stood for undervalued, cash-rich companies that he could understand, like a Chrysler or a Wal-Mart. He planned on investing for the long-term. He never believed in centaurs or any of this sick, shady business that you are practicing.’ At that he started to weep and threw down his gun.”

The team arrested Leeson and brought him back to New York for interrogation. In the meantime, animal-rights groups are contemplating bringing charges against Leeson, alleging that he treated his animals cruelly. The SEC team reported that the half-horse fund managers were forced to race each other around a mile-long track. Leeson gave them racehorse names like “Santa’s Little Broker” and “Blue Chip,” and brought in famous jockeys from around the world to ride them. In return for this, Leeson forced the centaurs to manage the jockeys’ money on a reduced-commission basis.

But Leeson denies that he ever meant to harm his centaurs. “I loved them like sons,” he said, “all 76 of them.”