Another boiler room pump bites the dust, this time without help from the SEC

The last four days have not been kind to investors in Biohemp International inc (BKIT). On July 12, 2019 it closed at $1.9425; with 28.85 million shares outstanding, it had a market cap of $56 million. Today it closed at $0.17, down over 90% from its highs.

BKIT has reportedly been the subject of a boiler room stock promotion. Here are a couple comments on BKIT’s Yahoo Finance message board:

Also, a short seller of pump and dumps that I know and respect posted one of the phone numbers used by the boiler room:

Promoters behind $BKIT boiler room calls. #scam #pumpanddump pic.twitter.com/tHueRYCbsF

— StockRealist (@StockRealist) July 12, 2019

Of all the kinds of stock promotion, boiler room pumps are the hardest to identify because there is no public record of the phone calls, no emails, no websites, and no advertisements online (although some boiler room promotions also involve email and landing page promotion as well). At the present time, with SEC Enforcement acting aggressively, going under the radar is the best bet for promoters. This promotion even stayed out of sight of OTC Markets, which does not even have it marked as being a promoted stock.

Here is a screenshot from the OTCMarkets website on BKIT:

While BKIT dumped before the regulators came calling, the SEC did recently suspend trading in multiple boiler room pump and dumps that were all connected.

In addition to the boiler room pump, BKIT also had a paid analyst research note with Ludlow Research, which was paid $2,300 for “on-going media advisory services”. I encourage you to read the note (pdf) if you want a good laugh.

Update 2019-7-19: OTC Market Research just made their research report on BKIT publicly available. Read it.

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above except that I am a paying subscriber to OTC Market Research. 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.