SEC CHARGES 4 PROMOTERS WITH MANIPULATING THE SECURITIES OF MICROCAP MARIJUANA-RELATED STOCKS

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged four promoters with ties to the Pacific Northwest for manipulating the securities of several microcap companies, including marijuana-related stocks that the agency has warned investors about in recent weeks.

The SEC alleges that the four promoters bought inexpensive shares of thinly traded penny stock companies on the open market and conducted pre-arranged, manipulative matched orders and wash trades to create the illusion of an active market in these stocks.  They then sold their shares in coordination with aggressive promotional campaigns that urged investors to buy the stocks because the prices were on the verge of rising substantially.  However, these companies had little to no business operations at the time. The promoters reaped more than $2.5 million in illegal profits through their schemes.

Two of the companies manipulated in this case – GrowLife Inc. and Hemp Inc. – claim to be related to the medical marijuana industry.  The SEC has issued an investor alert warning about possible scams involving marijuana-related investments, noting that fraudsters often exploit the latest growth industries to lure investors into stock manipulation schemes.  Other schemes by these four promoters involved an oil-and-gas company – Riverdale Oil and Gas Corporation – and three other microcap stocks, ISM International, Allied Products Corp, and Aden Solutions.

The SEC was able to unearth the schemes through the work of its recently created Microcap Fraud Task Force.

“Our Microcap Fraud Task Force is taking direct aim at abusive practices and serial violators within the microcap markets like these four promoters seeking to exploit retail investors for personal gain,” said Michael Paley, co-chair of the SEC’s Microcap Fraud Task Force.  “In this case, we meticulously reviewed trading records and developed the evidence necessary to connect these four promoters and their coordinated trading efforts.”

The SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., charges the following individuals:

Mikhail Galas, a stock promoter who lives in Vancouver, Wash.
Alexander Hawatmeh, a member of Worthmore Investments LLC, which owns a stock promotion website called stockhaven.com.  He formerly lived in Vancouver and currently resides in Lincoln City, Oregon.
Christopher Mrowca, a stock promoter who operates Money Runners Group LLC, which has an affiliated stock promotion website called MoneyRunnersGroup.com.  He lives in Bradenton, Fla.
Tovy Pustovit, who owns a stock promotion website called Explosive Alerts.  He also lives in Vancouver.
In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington announced criminal charges against Galas, Hawatmeh, and Mrowca.

According to the SEC’s complaint, GrowLife Inc. was part of a broader online promotion of several marijuana-related stocks in early 2014.  Mrowca specifically promoted GrowLife through his Money Runners Group website and predicted that the stock price would nearly double.  Mrowca, Galas, and Hawatmeh meanwhile engaged in manipulative trading designed to increase the price and volume of GrowLife stock, and they later sold their shares for illicit profits.

Similarly, the SEC alleges that Hawatmeh, Galas, and Mrowca bought and sold approximately 41.7 million shares of Hemp Inc. in January and February 2014 while the stock was actively promoted on the Internet.  For example, one Internet tout on February 6 claimed that Hemp could reach “a REAL Possible Gain of OVER 2900%.”  During the promotion, Hawatmeh, Mrowca, and Galas engaged in manipulative wash trades and matched orders to manipulate Hemp’s common stock before selling their shares for illegal gains.

“This was a carefully planned operation by Galas, Hawatmeh, Mrowca, and Pustovit to distort the performance of specific penny stocks as they were simultaneously promoted through social media and the Internet.  As the companies’ stock prices increased, these four promoters opportunistically dumped their shares for illicit gains,” said Amelia A. Cottrell, associate director in the SEC’s New York Regional Office.

The SEC’s complaint charges Galas, Hawatmeh, Mrowca and Pustovit with violating antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.  The SEC seeks temporary, preliminary, and permanent injunctions along with an emergency asset freeze, disgorgement, prejudgment interest, financial penalties, and orders barring the promoters from participating in a penny stock offering.

The SEC’s complaint names Nadia Hawatmeh as a relief defendant for the purposes of recovering ill-gotten gains in her brokerage account, which was used by the promoters to conduct some of their manipulative trades.

The SEC’s investigation has been conducted by Michael Paley, Eric M. Schmidt, Mona Akhtar, Joseph Darragh, and Tejal Shah.  The case was supervised by Ms. Cottrell, and the litigation will be led by David Stoelting.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

SEC CHARGES TWO IN ELABORATE PUMP-AND-DUMP STOCK SCHEME

FROM:  SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged individuals who pocketed millions of dollars running an elaborate pump-and-dump scheme involving shares of a medical education company in Pennsylvania and two other microcap stocks.

The SEC alleges that the stock market manipulation ring included two self-described bankers, a pair of dishonest brokers, and a corrupt company executive who issued misleading press releases.  The SEC today suspended trading in one of the microcap companies before they could illegally profit further.

According to the SEC’s complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the CEO and president of a purported merchant banking firm – Abraxas “A.J.” Discala and Marc E. Wexler – teamed up with brokers Matthew A. Bell and Craig L. Josephberg as well as Ira Shapiro, CEO of the medical education company CodeSmart, to inflate the price of the company’s stock and profit at the expense of the brokers’ customers.  They acquired 3 million restricted shares of CodeSmart stock following its reverse merger into a public shell company in May 2013, and improperly flooded the market with the shares as though they were unrestricted.  They then engaged in a promotional campaign to hype the stock with Shapiro issuing materially misleading CodeSmart press releases that were sometimes edited by Discala.  Meanwhile Bell and Josephberg invested their brokerage clients in CodeSmart, often using their retirement funds to purchase the purportedly unrestricted shares.  Once Discala and Wexler reduced their trading and Bell and Josephberg dumped their own shares on the market, CodeSmart’s stock price crashed to earth from a peak of nearly $7 per share.  It is currently trading below 10 cents.

“This was a brazen manipulation scheme calculated to enrich Discala and his accomplices using, in many cases, the retirement savings of innocent and unwitting retail investors,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC Enforcement Division.  “We act aggressively against unscrupulous brokers and investment advisers who take advantage of individual investors.”

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York today announced criminal charges against Discala, Wexler, Bell, Josephberg, and Shapiro.

“Here we have yet another case of individuals who thought they could manipulate our markets with impunity, but who will now pay a serious price for their abusive conduct,” said Daniel M. Hawke, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Discala and Wexler reaped millions of dollars in illicit gains from the CodeSmart scheme, and Bell and Josephberg each made in excess of $500,000.  More recently, they engaged in manipulative trading of two other penny stock companies: Cubed Inc. and The Staffing Group Ltd.  They exchanged text messages in which they openly discussed coordinating their trading in these securities in order to create a false impression of market activity.  Their text messages also contemplated that Cubed had the potential to be an even more profitable scheme than CodeSmart.  Cubed’s stock began trading in earnest on April 22, 2014, at a price of $5.25 and has moved incrementally upward with low volume in a pattern that suggests controlled manipulative trading.  The SEC has suspended trading in Cubed stock before Discala and the others could dump their shares on the market.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Discala lives in Norwalk, Conn., Wexler resides in Colts Neck, N.J., Bell lives in San Antonio, Josephberg lives in New York City, and Shapiro resides in Congers, N.Y.  The SEC’s complaint against them alleges violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 9, 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5.  The complaint seeks a permanent injunction and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains along with prejudgment interest, financial penalties, and penny stock bars.  The SEC also seeks officer-and-director bars against Discala, Wexler, and Shapiro.

The SEC’s investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Market Abuse Unit members Sheldon L. Pollock, Matthew J. Watkins, and Charles D. Riely along with Diego D. Brucculeri and Jordan W. Baker in the New York Regional Office.  John Marino, a specialist in the Market Abuse Unit, assisted the investigation.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Texas State Securities Board, and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

SEC ANNOUNCES ANOTHER CASE INVOLVING ALLEGED SECURITIES PRICE MANIPULATION IN A MICROCAP COMPANY

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

Litigation Release No. 23000 / May 22, 2014

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the latest in a series of cases against microcap companies, officers, and promoters arising out of a joint law enforcement investigation to unearth penny stock schemes with roots in South Florida.

In complaints filed in federal court in Miami, the SEC charged five penny stock promoters with conducting various manipulation schemes involving undisclosed payments to induce purchases of a microcap stock to generate the false appearance of market interest. The SEC also charged a Massachusetts-based microcap company and the CEO with orchestrating a pair of illicit kickback schemes and an insider trading scheme involving the company's stock. A stock promoter in Texas was charged for his role in the insider trading scheme.

The SEC has now charged 48 individuals and 25 companies in this series of penny stock investigations out of the agency's Miami Regional Office, which has worked closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The first of the joint enforcement actions was announced in October 2010.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida today announced criminal charges against many of the same individuals charged today by the SEC.

According to the SEC's complaint against Boca Raton, Fla.-based stock promoters Kevin McKnight and Stephen C. Bauer, they engaged in market manipulation fraud involving the penny stock of Environmental Infrastructure Holdings Corp. (EIHC). They generated the appearance of market interest in EIHC to induce investors to purchase the stock and artificially increase the trading price and volume. In a separate complaint against Jeffrey M. Berkowitz of Jupiter, Fla., the SEC alleges that he participated in a market manipulation scheme involving the stock of Face Up Entertainment Group (FUEG) and similarly worked to falsely generate the appearance of market interest in that stock. The SEC's complaint against Eric S. Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., alleges that he engaged in a pair of market manipulation schemes involving the stock of International Development & Environmental Holdings Corp. (IDEH) and DAM Holdings Inc. (DAMH), the latter of which is now known as Premier Beverage Group Corp. (PBGC). And according to an SEC complaint against Boca Raton, Fla.-based stock promoter Richard A. Altomare, he engaged in a market manipulation scheme involving the stock of Sunset Brands Inc. (SSBN).

The SEC alleges in a separate complaint that North Andover, Mass.-based Urban AG Corp. (AQUM) and its president and CEO Billy V. Ray Jr. of Cumming, Ga., schemed to make an undisclosed kickback payment to a hedge fund manager in exchange for the fund's purchase of restricted shares of stock in the company. In a separate kickback scheme, Ray made an inducement payment to a stock promoter who would purchase shares of Urban on the open market ahead of planned press releases to help him manipulate the stock. Meanwhile, stock promoter Wade Clark participated in Ray's insider trading scheme involving Urban stock by providing the hedge fund fiduciary with an advance copy of a press release containing material nonpublic information about the company so the hedge fund manager would purchase stock prior to the news being issued.

The SEC's complaints allege that Altomare, Bauer, Berkowitz, Brown, Clark, McKnight, Ray, and Urban AG Corp. violated Section 17(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933 and/or Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5(a) and 10b-5(c). The SEC is seeking financial penalties, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest, and permanent injunctions. The SEC also seeks penny stock bars against all of the individuals charged in these cases as well as an officer-and-director bar against Ray.

The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Miami division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

TROUBLE FOR FINANCIER AND FIRMS FOR SELLING BILLIONS OF UNREGISTERED SHARES OF STOCK

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a New York-based penny stock financier and his firms with violating the federal securities laws when they purchased billions of shares in a pair of microcap companies and failed to register them before they were re-sold to investors for sizeable profits.

Curt Kramer and his firms Mazuma Corporation, Mazuma Funding Corporation, and Mazuma Holding Corporation agreed to disgorge those profits in paying a total of $1.4 million to settle the SEC’s charges.

An SEC investigation found that Kramer and his firms obtained unregistered shares in penny stock issuers Laidlaw Energy Group and Bederra Corporation.  For the Laidlaw transactions, they claimed to rely on an exemption in Rule 504 of Regulation D that permits certain companies to offer and sell up to $1 million in unregistered shares.  However, the Mazuma firms’ purchases of Laidlaw shares exceeded Rule 504’s $1 million limit, so the shares were restricted and not exempt from the registration requirements of the securities laws when they were re-sold.  Mazuma Holding Corporation’s acquisition and sale of more than one billion unregistered shares of Bederra that had been misappropriated from the issuer by its transfer agent also were not exempt from registration.

“Unless there is a valid exemption, shares can’t be sold publicly without a registration statement that provides investors with the level of detail they deserve about the investment opportunity being offered,” said Michael Paley, co-chair of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Microcap Fraud Task Force that was created earlier this year to target abusive trading and fraudulent conduct in securities issued by microcap companies that often don’t regularly report their financial results publicly.

“Billions of shares were not vetted through the registration process yet became publicly traded as a result of the violations by Kramer and his Mazuma firms, and the SEC will continue to punish non-compliance with the registration provisions of the securities laws to ensure the investing public is protected in these types of transactions,” Mr. Paley added.

According to the SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings, Kramer and his firms purchased two billion Laidlaw shares, which amounted to 80 percent of Laidlaw’s outstanding shares at the time.  They purchased these shares at a significant discount from prevailing market prices, making it highly likely they could immediately re-sell them publicly for a short-term profit.  Kramer and his firms purchased the shares in 35 tranches with no six-month gaps, thus quantifying the transactions as a single, integrated offering through which Laidlaw exceeded the $1 million limit under Rule 504 by raising a total of $1,259,550.  No registration statement was filed for any shares that Laidlaw offered and sold to Kramer and his firms, nor was any registration statement filed for any shares that Kramer and his firms subsequently re-sold into the public market.  Despite exceeding the $1 million limit, Kramer and his firms continued to acquire and sell additional Laidlaw shares and profited by $126,963 from these transactions.

According to the SEC’s order, Kramer and Mazuma Holding Corporation acquired more than one billion shares of Bederra in 2009 and 2010 through 21 separate transactions from the principal of Bederra’s transfer agent, who had misappropriated the Bederra share certificates.  Again they purchased the shares at a significant discount from prevailing market prices.  Kramer and Mazuma Holding Corporation re-sold the misappropriated Bederra shares to the public without any registration statement for a profit of $934,404.

In the settlement, Kramer and his Great Neck, N.Y.-based Mazuma firms agreed to pay disgorgement totaling $1,061,367 plus prejudgment interest of $128,611 and penalties totaling $273,000.  Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, Kramer and Mazuma consented to the entry of an order finding that they violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933.  The order requires them to cease and desist from committing violations of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) and not participate in any Rule 504 offerings.  Entry of the order will constitute a disqualifying event for Kramer and the Mazuma firms under the recently-enacted bad actor disqualification provisions of Rule 506.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by staff in the New York and Denver offices, including Ian Karpel, Kim Greer, Haimavathi Marlier, Laura Yeu, Christopher Ferrante, and Elzbieta Wraga with assistance from examiners Terrence Bohan and Denis Koval.

SEC CHARGES 4 INDIVIDUALS IN ALLEGED FRAUDULENT PENNY STOCK SCHEME

Picture:  Black Hole.  Credit:  NASA

FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2012 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged four securities industry professionals with conducting a fraudulent penny stock scheme in which they illegally acquired more than one billion unregistered shares in microcap companies at deep discounts and then dumped them on the market for approximately $17 million in illicit profits while claiming bogus exemptions from the federal securities laws.

The SEC alleges that Danny Garber, Michael Manis, Kenneth Yellin, and Jordan Feinstein acquired shares at about 30 to 60 percent off the market price by misrepresenting to the penny stock companies that they intended to hold the shares for investment purposes rather than immediately re-selling them. Instead, they immediately sold the shares without registering them by purporting to rely on an exemption for transactions that are in compliance with certain types of state law exemptions. However, no such state law exemptions were applicable to their transactions. To create the appearance that the claimed exemption was valid, they created virtual corporate presences in Minnesota, Texas, and Delaware. The SEC also charged 12 entities that they operated in connection with the scheme.

According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Garber, Manis, Yellin, and Feinstein all live in the New York/New Jersey area and operated the scheme from 2007 to 2010. They each have previously worked in the securities industry either as registered representatives or providers of investment management or financial advisory services.

"These penny stock purchasers had enough securities industry experience to know that their penny stock trading was not exempt from the securities laws as they claimed," said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office. "They repeatedly violated the registration provisions and in the process also committed securities fraud. We will continue to fight microcap stock abuses that result in the unregistered distribution of shares without vital information about those companies being known to investors."

The SEC’s complaint alleges that Garber, Manis, Yellin, Feinstein and the named entities violated Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933; Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The SEC’s complaint seeks a final judgment, among other things, ordering all of the defendants to pay disgorgement, prejudgment interest and financial penalties; permanently enjoining all the defendants from future violations of the securities laws; and permanently enjoining all the defendants from participating in penny stock offerings.

The SEC’s investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Michael Paley, Laura Yeu, Elzbieta Wraga, Haimavathi Marlier, Yitzchok Klug and Paul Gizzi of the New York Regional Office. Mr. Gizzi and Ms. Marlier will lead the SEC’s litigation.