How one hedge fund went from being a high-flyer to being mired in a federal investigation for fraud.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing whether Plainfield Asset Management, a hedge fund that once had $5 billion in assets under management, committed fraud by overstating the value of some of its investments and charging management fees based on those inflated assets.

Three sources tell Fortune they have been contacted by the FBI's Connecticut office with questions about Plainfield, including Stuart Meissner, a New York City lawyer who represents an anonymous whistleblower who made the same allegations in a civil complaint filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on August 6. Meissner's client charges in his suit that Plainfield overvalued some investments so it could "defraud its own investors by unlawfully charging higher management fees than those which it is in fact entitled to." The complaint was filed under a provision of the recently enacted Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. More