Author: Michael Goode

On July 23rd the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California issued a press release about eight defendants that were indicted in pump and dump schemes. I already blogged about the indictment of Luke Zouvas for “laundering money he believed to be proceeds of stock fraud schemes.”

Besides the Zouvas indictment, there were two other indictments announced in the same press release. The two indictments share no defendants or stocks but both mention a cooperating witness (“CW-1”), described identically in each indictment as “a resident of California, and worked as a stock promoter.” One of the most talented stock scam researchers I know (the anonymous ‘nodummy’) wrote that he believes Michael Forster is the cooperating witness.

The two cases are:

United States v. Gannon Giguiere & Oliver Lindsay (3:18-cr-03071) US District Court, S.D. California
Indictment (thanks to Promotion Stock Secrets for uploading this)
Docket on CourtListener.com

United States v. Andrew Hackett, Annetta Budhu, Vikram Khanna, Kuldeep Sidhu, & Kevin Gillespie (3:18-cr-03072) US District Court, S.D. California
Indictment (thanks to Promotion Stock Secrets for uploading this)
Docket on CourtListener.com

In addition to the two criminal indictments, the SEC filed a civil suit against five of the individuals:

SEC Litigation Release
SEC Complaint (pdf)

The case is:
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Gannon Giguiere, Oliver-Barret Lindsay, Andrew Hackett, Kevin Gillespie, & Annetta Budhu (3:18-cv-01530) US District Court, S.D. California
Docket on CourtListener.com

Simply because I cannot easily copy and paste from the indictments due to formatting issues I have quoted relevant parts of the SEC complaint below (emphasis mine):

2. The three fraudulent schemes netted more than $10 million in illicit proceeds.

Scheme #1 – KVMD

3. The first scheme concerned KVMD, a purported medical-device business. Beginning in approximately June 2016, Giguiere, a stock promoter and KVMD’s undisclosed control person, caused KVMD to issue three million shares of its common stock to one of his associates, who in turn sold two tranches of 1.5 million shares to each of two nominee entities he and Lindsay, the owner and operator of a Cayman Islands-based broker-dealer, controlled.

4. Giguiere deposited one tranche of 1.5 million shares into a U.S. brokerage account he opened in the name of his nominee, and Lindsay deposited the second tranche of 1.5

million shares into an account in the name of his nominee at his Cayman Islands broker-dealer.

5. Between November 29, 2017 and January 26, 2018, Giguiere, Lindsay, and an associate conducted a matched trading scheme in KVMD’s stock, whereby they coordinated

Giguiere’s sales of his 1.5 million shares of KVMD to Lindsay, who was buying those shares in his own brokerage accounts and customer accounts at his Cayman Islands broker-dealer.

6. Unbeknownst to Giguiere and Lindsay, the associate with whom they conducted the scheme was a witness cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), who

was recording their phone calls and preserving their encrypted email and text message communications.

7. By January 26, 2018, as a result of their scheme, Giguiere and Lindsay had netted approximately $1.57 million in proceeds and had increased KVMD’s share price from zero to $1.20.

8. Soon thereafter, Giguiere began promoting KVMD’s stock on TheMoneyStreet.com (“TheMoneyStreet”), a stock promotion website he controlled, in anticipation of his and Lindsay’s sales of their second tranche of 1.5 million shares of KVMD into the buying volume generated by the promotion.

9. Giguiere and Lindsay’s plan to liquidate the second tranche of 1.5 million shares was stymied, however, on March 19, 2018, when the Commission suspended trading in KVMD’s securities for a period of ten business days.

Scheme #2 – ASNT

10. The second fraudulent scheme concerned ASNT, a purported digital media company.

11. In early 2017, Gillespie, ASNT’s chief executive officer, Budhu, a purported adviser to the company, and Hackett, a purported lender to ASNT, began laying the groundwork for a “pump and dump” of ASNT’s stock. [citation omitted]

12. In February 2017, Gillespie caused ASNT to enter into a purported “Advisory Agreement” with Budhu, under which she was paid 200,000 shares of ASNT stock for her

“consulting services.” ASNT issued the stock to Budhu in March 2017, and in August 2017 she sold the shares to Hackett at a significant premium to its then trading price.

13. Gillespie then caused ASNT to issue to Hackett a sham $300,000 convertible promissory note that would allow Hackett to convert the debt into 750,000 shares of ASNT stock. The group planned to have Hackett ultimately sell these 950,000 shares in connection with the pump and dump and then split the proceeds among the group’s members.

14. In October 2017, the group approached the cooperating witness about promoting ASNT’s stock on TheMoneyStreet in connection with their planned pump and dump. Unbeknownst to them, the cooperating witness was recording their phone calls and preserving the encrypted email and text message conversations that they sought to hide from, among others, law enforcement.

15. In December 2017, after he ultimately declined to promote ASNT, the cooperating witness introduced Hackett to an individual claiming to be the ringleader of a network of corrupt stockbrokers who would buy stock that Hackett was selling in the open market in their customers’ accounts—and without their customers’ knowledge—in exchange for a 30% kickback. Unbeknownst to Hackett, the purported ringleader of the corrupt broker network was an undercover FBI agent (“UC”).

16. Hackett agreed, and between December 22, 2017 and January 12, 2018 he sold more than 14,000 shares of ASNT in matched trades with the UC that he coordinated with the

cooperating witness in record ed phone calls and preserved encrypted text messages.

Scheme #3 – ESSI
17. The third fraudulent scheme concerned ESSI, a purported technology company focused on the cannabis industry.

18. Beginning in December 2015, Giguiere, who was acting as the company’s undisclosed control person, arranged for a transfer of control of ESSI to two nominal officers.

19. Giguiere then caused the company to enter into an agreement with one of his nominee entities, under which the nominee entity promoted ESSI’s stock on TheMoneyStreet. In exchange, ESSI paid the nominee entity millions of purportedly free trading shares of ESSI stock that the company issued pursuant to two faulty Form S-8 registration statements.

20. Throughout 2016 and into January 2017, Giguiere liquidated the shares of ESSI stock paid to his nominee entity while he was concurrently promoting ESSI’s stock on

TheMoneyStreet without adequately disclosing to investors his active liquidation of his own shares. As a result of the scheme, Giguiere earned more than $8.5 million in illicit proceeds.

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above except that I subscribe to Promotion Stock Secrets, which features the writing of ‘nodummy’ and may be owned in part by him. 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.

Yesterday on July 19th, 2018 the SEC announced that it had sued Centor Energy (CNTO) and its CEO Frederick DaSilva “for making materially false and misleading statements to Centor shareholders about Centor’s oil reserves, revenue prospects, and business dealings.” The company its its SEC both settled without admitting or denying the allegations.

SEC litigation release
SEC complaint (pdf)

The penalties seem particularly weak (quote from the litigation release):

Without admitting or denying the allegations, Centor and DaSilva consented to the entry of a final judgment enjoining them from future violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. DaSilva has also agreed to the imposition of penny stock and officer and director bars and to pay disgorgement of $7,500 plus pre-judgment interest of $1,028 and a civil penalty of $22,500. The settlements with Centor and DaSilva are subject to court approval.

I have previously blogged about Centor Energy thrice, when it was first promoted, when it was re-pumped, and when the SEC suspended trading in the stock. The trading suspension was in 2014 and the first promotion was in 2013.

Below are some details from the complaint:

8. Centor is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Nevada in 2011 as “Centor, Inc.,” with a stated principal place of business in Winter Park, Florida. Centor is purportedly engaged in the business of shale oil exploration, drilling and extraction in the east central region of the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan known as the “Pasquia Hills.” The Company changed its name to “Centor Energy, Inc.,” effective January 2014. The Commission suspended trading in Centor securities on February 11, 2014, prior to which Centor was quoted on OTC Bulletin Board and was a penny stock as defined under Exchange Act Rule 3a51-1.
9. Frederick DaSilva, age 55, resides in Alberta, Canada. On February 13, 2013, DaSilva became Centor’s Secretary, Treasurer, and Director. DaSilva became Centor’s CFO at some point in late 2013, and became its President and CEO in March 2014.

…

30. The December Press Release, the Presentation, and the January 8-K were materially false and misleading. As DaSilva knew or recklessly disregarded, the 1.1 billion
barrels of oil estimate was based on the Reserve Report’s estimate of the Conglomerate’s entire Lease Interests, of which Centor only owned 55%. The true number of barrels of oil Centor could realistically expect to recover (even assuming the accuracy of its own projections) was therefore materially lower than 1.1 billion barrels.
31. The Presentation also falsely stated that Centor had entered into an agreement to purchase the remaining 45% of leasehold interests over the Region from the Conglomerate. As DaSilva knew or reckless disregarded, the Purchase Agreement covered only an additional 11.66% (such that Centor could at most hope to acquire 66.66% of the Lease Interests) and there was no other agreement that covered the remaining interests.
32. Nor did Centor or DaSilva disclose in the December Press Release or in the Presentation that the Reserve Report indicated that the study of the Lease Interests was
incomplete, in that no individual connected to the Reserve Report had conducted a field test or even visited the Lease Interests to test some of its assumptions about geological conditions.
33. Indeed, DaSilva, who had not read the Reserve Report, failed to make any attempt to verify the assumptions, calculations, and conclusions made in the Reserve Report, and accordingly had no good faith basis to make any projections about Centor’s prospects purportedly drawn from the Reserve Report.
34. The Presentation was also misleading because it (a) repeated many of the untested favorable assumptions made in the Reserve Report (such as that the Region had low overburden providing easy access to the oil shale); and (b) contained other false statements such as that the Region was located in an area with “established infrastructure” such as roads and railroads.
35. In fact, as DaSilva knew or recklessly disregarded, the favorable assumptions in the Presentation had not been verified and were untested; the nearest small town to the Region was over 71 miles away; and there was no main road or railroad running to the Region.

And the reason for the small settlement? This tweet makes sense to me — the SEC didn’t have a great case and statute of limitations was about to run out:

Statute of limitations close to expiring settlement. ASC also did a CTO. Stated comp 4 promo was $300k. Mailer man in Boca now retired. Initials JG. Tweets a lot of Trump smack talk.https://t.co/rpgNWKlmSs

Wonder what he would charge for a slightly bullish $AA mailer.

— IvanaBoastsky (@IvanaBoastsky) July 19, 2018

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. 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.

When OTCMarkets designates a stock as Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware), marked by the skull and crossbones, the stock will tend to drop and brokers and clearing firms may restrict deposits of new shares in that stock or at least do more careful due diligence on people depositing new shares of stock. Interactive Brokers will not let any client open new positions in any stocks marked Caveat Emptor. So Caveat Emptor designation is a big deal.

Here is OTCMarkets’ explanation of its policy on Caveat Emptor:

OTC Markets Group designates certain securities as ‘Caveat Emptor’ and places a skull and crossbones icon next to the stock symbol to inform investors that there may be reason to exercise additional care and perform thorough due diligence before making an investment decision in that security.

The Caveat Emptor Designation may be assigned when OTC Markets becomes aware of one or more of the following:

• Promotion — The security is the subject of stock promotion that may be misleading or manipulative. Promotional activities may include news releases, spam email, and newsletters, whether they are published by the issuer or a third party. See OTC Markets Group’s Policy on Stock Promotion.
• Investigation of Fraud or Other Criminal Activities — There is an investigation or other indication of fraudulent or other criminal activity involving the company, its securities or insiders.
• Suspension/Halt — A regulatory authority or an exchange has halted or suspended trading for public interest concerns (i.e. not a news or earnings halt).
• Undisclosed Corporate Actions — The security or company is the subject of a corporate action, such as a reverse merger, stock split, or name change, without adequate current information being publicly available.
• Other Public Interest Concern — OTC Markets Group may determine that there is a public interest concern regarding the security. Such concerns may include but are not limited to promotion, spam or disruptive corporate actions even when adequate current information is available.

When Does Caveat Emptor Get Removed?

Facts and circumstances may differ, however generally, OTC Markets Group will remove the Caveat Emptor designation once the company meets the qualifications for Pink Current Information, has verified the information on its company profile on www.otcmarkets.com, and demonstrates that there is no longer a public interest concern. The Caveat Emptor designation is typically not removed within the first 30 days. During the time it is labeled Caveat Emptor, any stock that is not in Pink Current Information will also have its quotes blocked on www.otcmarkets.com.

A June 1st, 2018 petition to terminate its SEC trading suspension (pdf) by Efuel EFN (EFLN) gives some details about the company’s attempt to have its Caveat Emptor designation removed. The statements made by Efuel EFN’s President are rather comical for their bad English. For example:

11. On September 15, 2017 OTC Markets designate Efuel as a Caveat Emptor. All financial statements are true and correct. There were NO perpetrated reports. Efuel is small micro cup company which we represent as true, real, stable, genuine, dedicated and committed. Efuel was using “Research Report” to file more information regarding company activities. Efuel made many attempts to reach upon OTC regarding CE status, to reveal to the company relevant factor for action.
…
[14.] d. Efuel states no new shares were issued since 2013, which are restricted shares exchanged for acquired property.

The SEC enforcement brief against Efuel’s motion to terminate the trading suspension gives a fair amount of detail (far more than OTCMarkets provides) about why Efuel EFN received Caveat Emptor designation in the first place:

II. OTC Markets Designates Efuel as a Caveat Emptor Issuer
On September 25, 2017, OTC Markets designated Efuel as a “Buyer Beware” or “Caveat Emptor” issuer. (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶11) The designation was due to concerns about Efuel’s public disclosures, financial statements, and purported “Research Reports.” These documents were public as they were filed on OTC Market’s website under Efuel’s listing.  [Note by Michael Goode: Previous sentence was in footnote 2. Included in quote for clarity.] OTC Market’s concerns were based, among other things, on documents Efuel filed on OTC Market’s website, including:

(a) a May 21, 2017 “Research Report” titled “EFUEL CORPORATION HAS BEEN AUDITED BY DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE;”
(b) a May 5, 2017 “Research Report” titled “Euro-American Finance Network [sic] Inc. and [sic] Stefanovic Family Plan [$160 million] to Invest in Efuel EFN Corporation Projects;” and
(c) multiple balance sheets that did not balance, and did not include “cash” as an “asset.”

(May 21 Enright Aff. ,¶12) On January 2, Efuel sent a letter to OTC Markets, requesting that the Caveat Emptor designation on Efuel be removed. (Efuel Petition, Ex. A)

Efuel EFN then responded to OTCMarkets in an attempt to get Caveat Emptor designation removed:

III. Efuel Files Its 2017 Annual Statement on OTC Markets’ Website
On January 8, 2017, Efuel filed its purported financial statement with OTC Markets, claiming that the company had been audited by Mr. Stefanovic himself, through his firm EuroAmerican Financial Network, Inc. (“Euro-American”). (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶13)

IV. Efuel Sends an Attorney Opinion Letter to OTC Markets
On February 8, Efuel’s attorney, Mark E. Pena, sent a letter to OTC Markets regarding certain prior financial statements. (June 18 Enright Aff. Ex. 0). This letter is referenced in Efuel’s Petition, but is not attached to it as an exhibit. The Division includes it as an exhibit to the June 18 Enright Aff. for completeness of the record. [Note by Michael Goode: Previous sentence was in footnote 3. Included in quote for clarity.] The letter states that Mr. Pena has personally reviewed and discussed the financial statements with Mr. Stefanovic, and that Efuel’s 2017 financial statement complies with “Pink OTC Markets Guidelines for Providing Adequate Current Information.” Mr. Pena’s letter further states that: (i) the financial statement was internally prepared by the company in accordance with GAAP, with “auditing consultation” provided by Euro-American; (ii)he had the financial statement reviewed by an unidentified “local independent accounting firm specializing in public disclosure;” and (iii) that Efuel’s financial statement reports assets of over $519 million, with liabilities of approximately $3.7 million. The financial statement (which is only four pages) does not provide specific information as to what constitutes the $519 million in assets – only that Efuel supposedly has $15.1 million in “Property: Land, Building” and $500 million in “Land, Minerals, and Gold Deposit.” (June 18 Enright Aff. Ex. E, pg. 9) The financial statement does however, specifically state that it contains “audited results.” (June 18 Enright Aff. Ex. E, pg. 10) Efuel’s Petition (page 2) elaborates slightly by stating “Efuel holds 2905 acre land with 21 gold mining claims with minerals. Efuel is a small micro cup [sic] company which we represent as true, real stable, genuine, dedicated, and committed.” In its Petition, Efuel repeats the representation that it has over $519 million in assets, and only $3.7 million in liabilities. (Efuel Petition, pg. 3)

The SEC then gives OTCMarkets’ response detailing why it was not removing Caveat Emptor designation:

V. OTC Markets Declines to Remove the Caveat Emptor Designation
On February 23, 2018 OTC Markets sent a letter to Efuel stating “[w]e have completed our review of your December 31, 2017 Annual Report and related Attorney Letter and have determined that the information contained in these documents does not comply with OTC Pink Basic Disclosure Guidelines, therefore we are unable to remove the caveat emptor flag at this time. (May 21 Enright Aff. ,¶14 (Italics added)) OTC Markets’ letter further states that: “[i]n past reviews we have identified similar deficiencies to you and you continue to submit disclosure that does not resolve these deficiencies.” OTC Markets directed Efuel to submit revised financial reports and disclosure documents, a new attorney letter, and a letter from a U.S.-registered CPA certifying that the company’s financial reports were GAAP-compliant. (Id.) As of March 21, the date of the issuance of the trading suspension, Efuel had not submitted revised filings to OTC Markets in accordance with OTC Markets’ instructions. (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶15)

What can we conclude from this? OTCMarkets’ explanation of when it applies the Caveat Emptor designation and when it removes it is fairly complete at least when it comes to a company’s failures in disclosure. However, this does not provide clarity on the question of stock promotion and when that leads to the Caveat Emptor designation — I have seen some promoted stocks get designated Caveat Emptor and others not.

Trading in Efuel EFN (EFLN) stock was suspended by the SEC on March 21, 2018 (pdf). On May 7th, 2018 the SEC issued an order requesting additional submissions (pdf) stating that Efuel EFN was challenging the trading suspension and asking the company for more information. At the time I write this it appears that the administrative proceeding has not been decided. All relevant documents can be found on the administrative proceeding page for 3-18420.

I believe it unlikely that the SEC will grant Efuel EFN’s petition to remove the trading suspension given that the company is alleged by the SEC to have posted a false PR saying that the company was in compliance with OTCMarkets and the caveat emptor designation would be removed:

VI. Efuel Issues Materially False Press Releases and Twitter Statements
On March 19, 2018, Efuel drafted and disseminated a press release, which purports to be a letter from OTC Markets, and which states in relevant part, “[w]e have completed our review of your December 31, 2017 Annual Report and related Attorney Letter and have determined that the information contained in these documents complies with the OTC Pink Basic Disclosure Guidelines, therefore we are able to remove the Caveat Emptor flag at this time.” (Italics added) (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶6) The letter is a doctored version of the real February 23 letter from OTC Markets, which stated that Efuel’s filings “do not comply” with OTC Markets’ OTC Pink Basic Disclosure Guidelines, and that OTC Markets was “unable” to remove the Caveat Emptor designation. (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶14) Efuel released the doctored letter via Globe Newswire, and posted it on the company’s Twitter account (@aEfuelEFNCorp). (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶17) As of March 21, the letter remained viewable on Twitter and Yahoo Finance. (Id) As of March 21, 2018, Efuel’s Twitter feed touted the company’s stock, discussed purported stock repurchases in the open market, and described claimed shorting activity in Efuel stock. (May 21 Enright Aff. ¶18)

In Efuel EFN’s petition it also asked the SEC to tell OTCMarkets to remove the Caveat Emptor designation from its stock. This was the SEC’s response:

There is no provision in the Commission’s Rules of Practice for the additional remedies Efuel seeks – namely, an order from the Commission to OTC Markets requiring the removal of the Caveat Emptor designation on Efuel’s common stock that OTC Markets imposed in September 2017.
…
The Commission is not an arbiter of disputes between issuers and registered broker-dealers or alternative trading systems.

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. 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.

I usually ignore SEC insider-trading litigation so I managed to miss when Jay Fung was arrested for insider-trading on a takeover (specifically, the Gilead takeover of Pharmasset in 2011). This was a follow-up to SEC v. Kevin L. Dowd (3:13-cv-00494) and USA v. Kevin Dowd (3:13-cr-00636-AET), all in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey (links are to dockets at CourtListener.com). The original civil complaint (pdf) was brought by the SEC on January 25, 2013. The final judgment against Dowd ordered him to pay $33,325 to the SEC. As to the criminal complaint, Dowd plead guilty and was sentenced to 3 years probation and forfeiture of $35,000.

The criminal complaint against Dowd listed his co-conspirators (the ones who actually traded on the information) as follows:

j. Co-conspriator J.F. was defendant DOWD’s childhood friend, and resided in or around Del Ray Beach, Florida. Among other things, J.F. operated “Company A” , which maintained a brokerage account with a brokerage firm headquartered in Shrewsbury, New Jersey (“Brokerage Firm B”). J.F. previously worked at a penny stock promotion company in Boca Raton, Florida (the “Stock Promotion Company”) from approximately in or about 2000 to approximately in or about late 2006, where defendant DOWD also worked between in or about May 2000 through in or about July 2001.

k. Co-conspirator E.B. resided in or around Boca Raton, Florida, and among other things, was the vice president of “Company B” , a business based in Boynton Beach, Florida. E.B. worked at the Stock Promotion Company with co-conspirator J.F. from
approximately in or about 2003 through in or about 2005, and knew defendant Dowd.

“Con-conspirator J.F.” was later revealed to be Jay Fung when he was charged on information on March 9, 2016 and immediately pled guilty. The case was US v. Fung (3:16-cr-00107) in the US District Court, District of New Jersey. On January 17, 2018 he was sentenced to 1 year in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Jay Fung forfeited $345,245.

Jay Fung is currently imprisoned at CI Taft:

Previously, Jay Fung had been sued by the SEC for his promotion of RecycleTech (RCYT). That case was SEC v. Recycle Tech, Inc (1:12-cv-21656) in the US District Court, Sourthern District of Florida. I blogged about that case when it was first filed in 2012. In that case, the final judgment against Jay Fung was rendered on February 14th, 2014. Fung and his company Pudong LLC were judged to be jointly and severally liable for disgorgement of $456,457 along with interest of $30,998.36. Fung was also ordered to pay a civil penalty of $120,000.

Criminal and Civil cases against Jay Fung, Anthony J. Thompson Jr., and Eric Van Nguyen

The Manhattan District Attorney charged a number of stock promoters including the three listed above, back in 2014. The case is 03853-2014 in Manhattan Supreme Court. I first reported on that case in September 2014 and then provided an update on September 26th, 2017.

The summary of the criminal case is below:

The charges (at least against Thompson) are shown below:

The appearances in the case are shown below. Unfortunately, details are not given so I cannot be sure if any of the defendants have been dropped from the case. Sentencing is scheduled for September 27th, 2018.

The most recent decision in the case that I can access is from May 16th, 2016. Decisions do not appear to be accessible through the court’s website.

SEC Case against Anthony J. Thompson et al

Notwithstanding my ignorance of the exact outcome of the criminal case, the civil case has resumed (see docket). This week (on July 11th) the SEC alleged the following in a letter (document 99):

We write in advance of the July 10, 2018 prehearing conference in this matter in order to provide the Court with additional background as to the status of this litigation. Unfortunately, it has become apparent that defendant Anthony J. Thompson (“Thompson”) has engaged in a pattern of obfuscation and delay. The SEC has recently obtained documents from other litigation in which Thompson is involved that suggest not only that he has deliberately delayed the discovery process in the SEC action, but that his misconduct might be far broader than originally thought, and that Thompson might have significant assets secreted abroad.

As to defendant Jay Fung, he was agreed to a settlement offer that the staff is prepared to submit senior management and the Commission for review.

The other litigation referred to by the SEC is his divorce, Kendall Thompson v. Anthony J. Thompson, Jr., Case No. 147268-FL, and a trust litigation “in which Kendall [Thompson] alleges that Thompson has fraudulently diverted assets from a trust supposedly set up for the benefit of their children to pay for drugs and prostitutes, among other things.” (The quote is from the first footnote in the above-linked letter.)

This letter highlights how the SEC had agreed to a settlement with Thompson but he never formally agreed and now with the new allegations it is my opinion that the SEC will not settle with Thompson:

After approximately two months of what the SEC believed were good faith settlement discussions, Thompson has failed to formally agree or execute the settlement papers sent to him.

Information Obtained From the Matrimonial Case and the Trust Litigation

The SEC has learned from an initial and by necessity cursory review of some of the materials it has recently received of certain facts that are potentially material to the case at bar. These facts include that Thompson, in addition to the funds received in from the schemes set out in the Complaint, sold off OTC Solutions, Inc. for $6 million. The SEC was also informed that Thompson has been providing “consulting” services to companies located in Belize, might have been paid several million dollars in Belize. The SEC further learned that Thompson might have converted his ill-gotten gains into luxury cars and boats, and jewelry, including expensive watches. Finally, from reviewing the pleadings in those cases the SEC learned that Thompson was accused of similar dilatory and obfuscatory discovery tactics therein, including failing to adequately produce tax returns, banking information, and other financial data.

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. 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.

This morning prior to market open the trading in AXM Pharma (AXMP) was suspended by the SEC.

SEC Suspension Release (pdf)
SEC Suspension Order (pdf)

The reason for the SEC trading suspension (from the release):

because of questions about the adequacy and accuracy of information concerning AXMP’s leadership and operations contained in a Quarterly Report issued by AXMP on May 14, 2018, AXMP’s press releases issued between July 2, 2018 and July 6, 2018, and a Supplemental Information Report issued by AXMP on July 5, 2018. AXMP is a Nevada corporation based in Las Vegas, NV. AXMP’s stock is quoted on OTC Link (previously “Pink Sheets”) operated by OTC Markets Group Inc. under the symbol AXMP.

Here is the quarterly report mentioned above. The supplemental information report referred to above includes the CEO’s resignation. Below are the links to the press releases issued between July 2 and July 6:

AXM Pharma Announces A Proposed Reverse Merger with A Cameroon Billionaire Businessman – GlobeNewswire | 07/02/2018

AXM Pharma Announces the Appointment of a New Chief Executive Officer – GlobeNewswire | 07/03/2018

AXM Pharma Issues Correction – GlobeNewswire | 07/07/2018

This trading suspension is related to the suspension earlier this month of WSML, CYPE, and BTHI. AXM Pharma shares many connections with those other three companies including a connection with Mandla J. Gwadiso.

Disclaimer: I have no position in any stock mentioned above. 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.