May 15, 2018

The SEC charged four individuals for their roles in a fraudulent scheme that generated nearly $34 million from unlawful stock sales and caused significant harm to retail investors. The SEC’s complaint charges Francisco Abellan Villena, Guillermo Ciupiak, James B. Panther Jr., and attorney Faiyaz Dean. According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants manipulated the market for and illegally sold the stock of microcap issuer Biozoom Inc. As part of the alleged scheme, the defendants hid their ownership and sales of Biozoom shares by using offshore bank accounts, sham legal documents, a network of nominees, anonymizing techniques, and other deceptive practices. The defendants also allegedly directed a wide-ranging promotional campaign and employed sophisticated, manipulative trading techniques to artificially inflate Biozoom’s share price. The alleged scheme culminated in the defendants’ illegal sales of Biozoom, which netted them nearly $34 million in unlawful proceeds. SEC

Tagged in: Misrepresentations, Securities Fraud,