NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A partner at the McKinsey consulting firm was criminally charged on Wednesday with insider trading ahead of Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s agreement to buy digital lender GreenSky Inc for $2.24 billion, U.S. prosecutors said on Wednesday. Puneet Dikshit, 40, of Manhattan, allegedly generated about $450,000 of profit after purchasing call options in GreenSky, a bet that its stock price would rise, that he sold after the merger was announced here on Sept. 15. Court papers show that Dikshit ran Google searches after his trading related to the 2012 insider trading conviction of Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey global managing partner and Goldman director. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges against the defendant. Dikshit was arrested on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether he has a lawyer, and a phone message left at his home was not immediately returned. McKinsey had no immediate comment. (Reporting by Jody Godoy and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)