Thread by @DawsonSField

Two arrested in the UK on indictments from SDNY over using shell companies to engage in illegal pump & dump stock schemes. Indictment covers from 2013-2019. HT to @JarradKushner
#ButNothingsHappening
justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/s…

@JarradKushner I love the language here "As a major facilitator of market manipulation schemes..." which means they were doing this as a service for their investors.
Investors as yet unindicted, or at least still sealed. This is getting the #receipts!

@JarradKushner They set up & used shell companies to conceal who their real investors were behind the schemes to make it harder to identify their customers.

@JarradKushner This was a fairly complex scheme to conceal the identities of the firms involved using "publicly traded shell companies". I imagine the SEC will have a few things to say about the existence of "publicly traded shell companies"

@JarradKushner Essentially they would buy up most or all of the stock of a small company. Then generate false news about the company to drive it's price up, sell off all their stock, launder the cash, & leave everyone to figure out why their hot stock tip was a bust.

@JarradKushner I wouldn't want to be one of the "scheme participants" at this time! I am guessing that between the #PanamaPapers & the #ParadisePapers the DOJ knows perfectly well who the participants were behind the 'nominee entities'.

They would gather up all the stock through concealed trades on behalf of the shell companies, then release 'promotional material' & engage in manipulative trade practices to drive the stock up. The Pump part of "pump & dump".

They concealed that the promotional materials were coming from the schemers who were setting everyone up!

Then they had the shell companies they controlled, trade stock with each other to create artificial sales & volume of trading in the stock. To drive the price up as it now looked attractive, everyone seems to be buying this stock...

They then used standard money laundering procedures to get the cash into the hands of the scheme participants. Such as using fabricated invoices to account for why one shell company was paying another shell company...

Looks like SEC is already on the case after these 2 defendents, Blacklight, & others....

The SEC just announced charges against 6 in this case. Steve M. Bajic, a citizen of Canada and Croatia, and Rajesh Taneja, a Canadian citizen, Anthony Killarney, a U.K. citizen, Christopher McKnight, a Canadian citizen, and Aaron Wise, a U.S. citizen,
sec.gov/news/press-rel…

The list of agencies helping include many places where money laundering & tax evasion are frequently conducted. Malta, Cyprus, Canada, Mauritania, Panama, Singapore, all of those jurisdictions now helping identify the crooks for the DOJ!