SEC enforcer Ceresney to shed badge

One of Wall Street’s toughest cops is leaving the beat.

Andrew Ceresney, head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission since 2013, will leave his post at the end of the year, the regulator said Thursday.

“My time as Enforcement Director has been the highlight of my career,” Ceresney said in a statement.

Ceresney came to the agency from white-shoe law firm Debevoise & Plimpton after the appointment of Mary Jo White as chair of the SEC.

He’s now the seventh major SEC official to leave the agency, following White’s November announcement that she would leave.

Ceresney led major investigations into insider-trading and marketabuse cases, including a pending one against billionaire investor Leon Cooperman.

He also took on Barclays and Bank of America, among scores of other targets.

“If you were putting together an all-star team of prosecutors, he would be on it,” Ben Lawsky, CEO of consultant The Lawsky Group, and former New York Department of Financial Services boss, told The Post.

To be sure, Ceresney’s term had bumps in the road, too. He gained a reputation for a “broken windows” approach to the markets during his tenure at the agency, bringing 2,850 enforcement actions, many of which irked Wall Street types who felt unfairly put upon.

In 2014, he settled one action against 34 individuals for a total of $2.6 million — even though it was generally felt the violations were low-level.

Ceresney said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he will take time off to relax and argue with his wife about TV.