(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged six individuals and their companies with participating in schemes that allegedly generated more than $35 million of illegal sales of stock in at least 45 microcap companies. The charges contained in two complaints reflect investigations by staff in the SEC\u2019s New York and Boston offices, and assistance from multiple regulators outside the U.S.<\/p>\n
According to one SEC complaint, Steve M. Bajic, a citizen of Canada and Croatia, and Rajesh Taneja, a Canadian citizen, helped shareholders secretly dump large quantities of microcap stock, coordinating the illegal stock sales with Kenneth Ciapala, a citizen of the U.K. and Switzerland, and Anthony Killarney, a U.K. citizen, and Swiss-based company Blacklight SA. The SEC\u2019s complaint also alleges that Christopher McKnight, a Canadian citizen, and Aaron Wise, a U.S. citizen, fraudulently transferred, and hid the sources of, funds used to promote several of the microcap stocks. <\/p>\n
A second complaint alleges that Ciapala and Blacklight facilitated the sale of millions of unregistered shares of EMS Find Inc. (EMSF) while the microcap stock\u2019s price was being artificially inflated and dumped into the market. The complaint further alleges that Ciapala and Blacklight engaged in manipulative trading of EMSF stock. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against Ciapala and Blacklight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe charges here highlight our work with overseas securities regulators to root out players who use microcap markets to take advantage of U.S. investors,\u201d said Paul Levenson, Director of the SEC\u2019s Boston Regional Office. \u201cInvestors can help protect themselves from microcap fraud by using the tools and resources on Investor.gov.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs we allege in the complaints, the defendants evaded the securities registration requirements and engaged in other manipulative conduct, including by disguising the true sellers of securities, to defraud investors and generate illicit profits for themselves,\u201d said Marc P. Berger, Director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office. \u201cWe will continue to pursue individuals and entities, whether located domestically or abroad, who undertake complex schemes to hide their fraudulent conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaints charge Bajic, Taneja, Killarney, Ciapala, and their companies with violating the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws and with acting as unregistered broker-dealers. McKnight and Wise were charged with aiding and abetting the fraudulent stock sales and McKnight was also charged with violating an antifraud provision of the federal securities laws. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement of allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest, penalties, and penny stock bars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged six individuals and their companies with participating in schemes that allegedly generated more than $35 million of illegal sales of stock in at least 45 microcap companies. The charges contained in two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72391,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72388\/revisions\/72391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}