They are accused of intentionally deceiving the investing public and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the true state of the company's finances.

At the same time, the SEC announced that it had separately filed civil fraud charges against seven former and one current executive of Qwest.

The criminal lawsuit alleges that the four executives falsely booked more than $33m (�20.8m) profit during a three month period in 2001.

US prosecutors accused the men of "a fraudulent scheme orchestrated to meet at all costs Qwest's predictions of double-digit revenue growth".

Inflated profits

The accused are:

• Grant Graham, former chief financial officer for Qwest's global business unit
• Bryan Treadway, a former assistant controller
• Thomas Hall, a former senior vice president for government and educational solutions
• John Walker, a former vice president in the same group

The Justice Department and the SEC began investigating Qwest's financial practices after the company revealed it had improperly recorded $2.2bn in profits between 2000 and 2001.

Investigators have been trying to find out if Qwest artificially inflated its profits by swapping network capacity with another troubled telecoms company, Global Crossing.

The four men facing criminal charges were also named in the SEC's civil suit along with Joel Arnold, a former executive vice president of the global business unit; William Eveleth, currently Qwest senior vice president of finance; Douglas Hutchins, former director of finance for global business; Richard Weston, former senior vice president of strategic sales.