Penny Stock Fraud Info
SEC took bribe from criminals involved in TWTN - AHFI - CNDD fraud - NC AG sues
U.S. charges Quebec man with securities fraud
Peter Brieger, Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, April 26, 2008TORONTO - A Montreal penny-stock promoter has been charged in North Carolina with securities fraud for his alleged role in a $23.4-million US pump-and-dump scheme.
State authorities laid conspiracy and money laundering charges this week against Bryan Kos and American David Hagen after a grand jury returned a two-count indictment. None of the allegations has been proven.
The charges come just more than a year after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission imposed fines on the Montrealer and another American colleague, Donald Oehmke, of $650,000 and $1.5-million, respectively, for fraudulently selling shares in public companies. The SEC settlement did not carry an admission of wrongdoing.
****Oehmke is listed in the criminal charges as one of eight unindicted co-conspirators.
In a 29-page indictment, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte, N.C., alleges that Kos and Hagen—who was convicted in 1990 of mail and bankruptcy fraud as well as money laundering—earned $23.4 million by artificially creating demand for shares in virtually worthless companies between 2003 and 2006.
Those companies included BodyScan, Twister, Absolute Health, Concorde, BioHeal and GTX Global. Hagen was GTX’s chief executive, according to the indictment.
Both men and the alleged co-conspirators are alleged to have hidden their ownership in the companies through various offshore entities and marketed the shares via the Internet, unsolicited faxes, press releases and disclosure documents.
Those promotional materials contained “material factual misrepresentations and omissions,” including earnings projections that were known to be “unrealistic and unjustifiable,” statements about company operations that were “false,” and did not disclose that two of the co-conspirators have criminal records, the indictment says.
It blows my mind to see how long they take to press charges.
“The SEC settlement did not carry an admission of wrongdoing.”
The SEC is as guilty as anyone.
The SEC took the money that these criminals stole from investors to settle the charges.
The SEC got its cut like the Mafia, protection money called “fine.” According to the figures in this article they got about 10%. I suspect some SEC officials got a few bucks on the side. And the victims got nothing.
The NC AG should go after the officers in those entirely FAKE companies like Absolute Fitness and Twister Networks.
It’s been a long time since I looked at my research at Twister Networks and Absolute Fitness
It was pretty intense for a while, getting involved with all these crooks.
RESTITUTION for the defrauded investors is unlikely.
The SEC is happy it got paid off and I doubt that Oehmke et al were dumb enough to NOT hide the loot. Thought I’d check the NC complaint to see whether they froze assets.
I couldn’t find a press release or the complaint at the NC AG’s site.
I couldn’t even find a way to search the site. Here is another article.
