Polar Petroleum (OTCBB: POLR) pump and dump suspended by SEC

Prior to the market open today (but after a few unlucky folks bought the stock at $6.05 in premarket trading) the SEC suspended trading in Polar Petroleum. See the suspension order (pdf). Below is an excerpt:

SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
Release No. 69721 / June 10, 2013
SEC SUSPENDS TRADING IN SECURITIES OF POLAR PETROLEUM CORP.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) announced the temporary
suspension, pursuant to Section 12(k) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange
Act”), of trading in the securities of Polar Petroleum Corp. (“Polar”), of Anchorage, Alaska at
9:30 a.m. EDT on June 10, 2013, and terminating at 11:59 p.m. EDT on June 21, 2013.
The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of Polar because of questions
regarding the accuracy and adequacy of assertions by Polar, and by others, to investors in press
releases and promotional material concerning, among other things, the company’s assets,
operations, and financial condition. This order was entered pursuant to Section 12(k) of the
Securities Exchange Act.

 

The company’s multiple press releases about its oil lease bordering an Exxon oil lease in Alaska are the likely reason for the halt: the press releases covered at length Exxon’s good news and intimated that it would be very good for Polar Petroleum as well.

June 3rd press release: Polar Petroleum Corp. Completes Acquisition of Prime Alaska Properties Bordering ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson Project in Alaska’s North Slope Region

June 5th press release: Polar Petroleum Corp. Reports on BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips Planning Additional $1 Billion Investment in Alaska Due to New Industry Friendly Tax Legislation

June 10th press release: Photo Release — Exxon to Spend $253 Million on Point Thomson Pipeline With Capacity of 70,000 Barrels a Day to Immediate South of Polar’s North Point Thomson Project

Here is an excerpt from the June 5th press release:

BP also announced it has support from the other Working Interest (WI) owners at Prudhoe Bay (BP 26%; Exxon 36%; ConocoPhillips 36%; Chevron 1%) to evaluate a further $3 billion worth of new development projects in the Greater Prudhoe Bay area. Among the additional development opportunities being evaluated are expanding and debottlenecking existing Prudhoe Bay facilities; constructing a new drilling pad; and expanding of existing pads, including the drilling of over 110 new wells. The additional development projects could take nearly 10 years to complete, and would be expected to further increase Alaska’s oil production while creating new industry jobs.[3]
The news is yet another indication that the state’s tax reform has revived Alaska’s energy industry by making it more attractive to oil industry investment. On April 17, 2013, ConocoPhillips announced its first additional investments on Alaska’s North Slope based on the tax change.[4] According to ConocoPhillips, the company will be deploying a new drilling rig to the Kuparuk oil field to work over existing wells in order to increase production.[5] BP’s June 3, 2013 news release included the following comments from the president of BP Alaska, Janet Weiss: “With this new tax law, the Alaska legislature and Governor Parnell have taken an important step toward improving Alaska’s long-term economic future. Our announcement today should make abundantly clear that BP is committed to being a part of that future and to continuing to extend the life of North America’s largest oil field.” Weiss also added: “Now that an improved tax structure is in place, oil and gas projects can once again move forward, keeping Alaska competitive in the midst of America’s recent energy renaissance.”[2]

I previously wrote about the Polar Petroleum pump and dump.

Disclaimer: I have no net position in any stock mentioned above and no relationship with any parties mentioned above. I am currently long 3200 shares of POLR in one account and short 3200 shares in another account. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.

 

Biozoom Inc $BIZM pump and dump, purportedly uncompensated

I saw for the first time today online display ads promoting Biozoom (OTCBB: BIZM). The interesting thing about this promotion is that none of the websites touting the stock disclose any compensation. They specifically state that they do not own shares or get cash compensation to write about the company. I obviously believe that to be a lie. The pump reports can be found at:

http://www.thestockreport.com/BIOZOOMreport.pdf (pdf)
http://gfiz.com/GFIthegroundfloor.pdf (pdf)
http://www.gfiz.com/innovative-technology-company-invents-real-star-trek-medical-scanner-that-diagnoses-patient-health-in-seconds/6/
http://www.thestockreport.com/top-3-stocks-for-2013-and-beyond.php
http://www.emergingpennystocks.com/the-breakthrough-technology-engineered-to-power-the-medical-and-tech-sectors-for-the-next-two-decades.php

 

Disclosed budget: $0

Promoter: TheStockReport.com / GFIZ.com (Global Financial Insight)

Paying party: None

Shares outstanding:  114,964,138
Previous closing price: $0.485
Market capitalization: $55 million

 

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considered advertising for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. 1734.

bizm_gfiz

 

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[Edit 2013-6-18]: See this post on BIZM at Promotion Stock Secrets and their photos of Francisco “Fat Frank” Abellan, believed to be behind BIZM.

[Edit 2013-6-23]: Here is a recording of an ad for BIZM that aired on the Rush Limbaugh show. There have been reports of ads promoting BIZM in USA Today and BusinessWeek. Today there was a full page ad on the back page of the New York Times. People have also received hard mailers promoting the stock. Here is a scanned mailer (pdf).

 

Disclaimer: [Edit 2013-6-23]: I have no net position in BIZM but am short 10,000 shares in one account and long 10,000 shares in another account. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.

Fake hard mailer on Dephasium Corp (DPHS)

Last Friday, @StockBrainiac (run by Equities Awareness Group) tweeted about an upcoming hard mailer promoting Dephasium Corp (DPHS).

Over the weekend a few crappy stock promoters pumped the stock.

LiquidTycoon has agreed to be compensated fifteen thousand dollars for a one day public awareness marketing campaign for DPHS from the third party StockMister LLC.

The same promoter that runs that website runs the following websites:

PennyStockMoneyTrain.com
PennyStockPickAlert.com
SuperHotPennyStocks.com
SuperNovaStockPicks.com
LiquidTycoon.com
TheInformedStockInvestor.com
WinningPennyStockPicks.com
TheStockPickingMoneyTree.com
WePickPennyStocks.com
WallStreetNewsRelease.com

DPHS was also promoted by Joepennystocks.com / PennyPickAlerts.com:

 JoePennyStocks has been compensated $15,000.00 USD by StockMister LLC for a one day Awareness Campaign on DPHS

And by Openingbellreport.com:

Compensation: We have been compensated up to $35,000 for this publication by DesignIRFirm.

This morning prior to the market open someone sent me a link to http://www.penny-mailers.com/mailers/DPHS_mailer_3rdjune.jpg using my contact form to report that they received a hard mailer on DPHS. I was immediately suspicious, especially after seeing that the website that image was hosted on was just registered on May 22nd. Furthermore, a look in the directory showed many different file names for the same image:
dphs_directory - Copy (2)

Also, the font was off in some places — the “x” in “next” was weird and the “u” in “huge” was in italics while the rest of the word was not.

next_huge

I tweeted my suspicions prior to the market open:

I took to Twitter to see what else people were saying and found this:

The purported mailer of DPHS looked a lot like the LOTE mailer. I became convinced that the purported hard mailer was fake. Tim Lento then posted in the TimAlerts chat that

TimLento

DPHS LOTE check it out, creases exactly the same and black marks on top and bottom http://bit.ly/11mjKzc http://bit.ly/11mjL6e

Posted Jun 03, 10:24 AM

 

The fold marks were the exact same as those in the LOTE hard mailer that Tim Lento had uploaded over a month ago; the purported DPHS mailer was just a Photoshopped version of the LOTE mailer. Here is a close-up that proves the DPHS mailer is a fake (see the zoomed-out comparison):

dphs_close - Copy (2)

 

Even without the original LOTE image to compare the DPHS image to, it would still be possible to ascertain that the DPHS image was faked, by using image error level analysis. Take a look for yourself.

Here is a small piece of the DPHS image:

dphs_ilea

The lighter areas show a different level of image error compared to the darker errors, indicating that they came from different sources. Different colors in the original will affect the image error level analysis so it is only in sections of the same color and font where differences in the error level image are meaningful.

How I will trade DPHS

Fake stock promotions consistently do much worse than even real stock promotions, so I am short biased on DPHS. That being said, there is bid support on the stock that has gotten partially filled (the bids were not pulled when they were about to be tested) which means that someone is trying to support this and not just sell as much stock as possible as quickly as possible. Consequently, I will not look to short this aggressively. But I still won’t even consider buying it.

[Edit 2013-6-3 8:00pm EST]: Multiple people have posted photos of a real hard mailer that hit today promoting DPHS. But even this mailer, while real, is still fake, because it says that it is from AwesomePennyStocks and that they will promote DPHS to their email list on Thursday. Here is a photo that was posted to iHub. I am quite certain that this is not from AwesomePennyStocks (APS) or anyone affiliated with them. They have continued to email promoting XUII. I have taken advantage of the confusion though by selling short XUII overnight and holding DPHS long overnight (both positions will likely be closed soon after the open tomorrow). The mailer directs people to www.pre-mailer-alerts.com which was registered on April 25th, has a design very much like APS’ website Premiumstockreport.com, and was registered to Maria Morales of Costa Rica. APS’ current legal entity is Degroupa Tenner Morales Media. I think it quite likely that someone is having quite a bit of fun pretending to be APS.

[Edit 2013-6-4 8am]: I am wondering if the new APS mailer was even sent out in the mail. I would expect more people to have received it if it had been sent. Maybe it is another fake.
dphs1

 [Edit 2013-6-13]: The real hard mailer sent out promoting DPHS (from here):

dphs

Disclaimer: [Edit 2013-6-3 8pm EST – I am long DPHS and am short XUII shares; both positions will likely be closed early tomorrow morning.] I have no position in any stock mentioned and I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.