I will update this post as I complete translations or synopses of the articles. The original articles are in French.
29 November: Une mère monoparentale se souviendra longtemps de Babikian (A single mother will remember Babikian for a long time)
29 November: Une fraude, selon un expert (A fraud, according to an expert)
27 November: Le mystérieux multimillionnaire Babikian dans la mire de l’AMF (The mysterious multimillionaire Babikian in the sights of the Quebec tax authorities)
For my own part, I can state that the AMF (Quebec tax authority) is very aggressively pursuing leads on the whereabouts and assets of John Babikian. They are putting a lot of time and manpower into this.
Highlights of the oldest article:
Jose Lorrea, the current owner of a condo formerly belonging to John Babikian, was interviewed by Xavier Saint-Pierre and David Gallant for a half hour.
“They wanted to know what I knew about the sale of the condo,” he said. He bought the condo on April 4th, 2013 for C$447,000. John Babikian was never present for the sale of the condo and was represented by his parents, Gérard Babikian and Laudy Khairallah.
Babikian acquired the condo in 2009 in the name of a numbered company for the price of C$348,881. During the sale, Babikian declared that he had never been married or in a civil union. However, this is contradicted by a marriage filing with the Montreal court on July 31, 2010.
The Quebec tax authority recently obtained a judgement against John Babikian for C$1.78 million for taxes owed in 2011. According to the judgement on November 21, Babikian must pay C$1,782,518.55 and daily interest from November 22nd. This is in addition to prior judgments against Babikian for taxes owed for the years 2008 to 2010.
Highlights of the second article:
The case of Sunpeaks Ventures (SNPK), promoted by websites linked to John Babikian, is clearly a stock fraud, according to a former SEC lawyer, Gary Aguirre.
[The article describes how pump and dumps work — which is unnecessary for my readers]
Mr. Aguirre envisaged that there would be a year to file a class action against Sunpeaks Ventures and Awesomepennystocks, after having received many calls from investors who had been fleeced in the pump and dump. However, he was not able to find the person or persons who ran the scheme.
“These are moving targets — they hide themselves behind offshore entities. It is extremely troubling that neither the SEC nor the FBI have yet acted in this case, because only they can unmask the masterminds of this scheme.”
Highlights of the most recent article:
The sad history of a single mother from the Chicago area who lost money in an Awesomepennystocks pump and dump can in part explain how John Babikian acquired a huge fortune.
Amy, a 57 year old American, contacted us soon after our first article about John Babikian.
“I don’t know who gave them my address, but I regularly received promotional announcements about certain companies,” she said. In March 2012, she received emails about a company in the business of distributing specialized medicines. The company, Sunpeaks Ventures, was said to be at the point of commercializing their multivitamin product designed for people taking anti-coagulant drugs.
Amy confessed that she had wanted to buy about $35,00 worth of Sunpeaks stock because of her enthousiasm for the product Clotamin. “They said that they were at the point of signing an agreement with Walgreens,” she said.
She ended up investing more and eventually losing over $100,000 on Sunpeaks stock. “I live day to day — $100,000 — that was all my retirement savings. I don’t know how I will get out of this,” she said.
Disclaimer: I have no position in any stocks mentioned and 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.
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