Shoshanna Utchenik
ticklethewire.com
Collaboration between the SEC, FBI, and Florida U.S. Attorney’s office has resulted in charges against several penny-stock companies, their officers, and three promotors for bribes and kickbacks.
The Wall Street Journal reports that shady players charged by the SEC Monday include one caught paying kickbacks to an FBI agent posing as a trustee. Those charged are variously accused of paying to hype microcap stocks in the interest of generating sales illegally.
Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami office, stated, “The company officers and promoters in many of these schemes disguised their kickbacks as payments to phony consulting companies that performed no actual work. These illegal activities were fully intended to artificially inflate the stock volume and prices of these penny stock companies to the detriment of investors.”
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