Would you perhaps be referring to the SEC probe into stock manipulation by organized crime?
Got this off of the AOL news search for Solv-Ex...
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In the article, Business Week reported that organized crime has established a network of stock promoters, securities dealers and ``boiler rooms'' that sell stocks nationwide using hard-sell tactics. The brokerage firms are located mainly in the New York area and in Florida, the magazine said.
Four organized-crime ``families'' as well as elements of the Russian Mafia directly own or control, through front men, some two dozen brokerages that make markets in hundreds of small-capitalization stocks, according to Business Week. Other securities dealers and traders are said to pay extortion money to organized crime as ``just another cost of doing business'' on Wall Street.
Organized crime's activities appear to have been confined to the small-capitalization markets, while stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange have not been involved, the magazine said.
The 19 companies named in the article are Affinity Entertainment, Celebrity Entertainment, Beachport Entertainment, Crystal Broadcasting, First Colonial Ventures, Global Spill Management, Hollywood Productions, Innovative Medical Services, and International Nursing Services.
The others are Novatek International (which was stripped of its Nasdaq listing in November), Osicom Technologies, ReClaim, SC&T International, Solv-Ex Corp., TJT, Mama Tish, Fun Tyme Concepts, U.S. Bridge of N.Y. and Cable & Co. Worldwide.
Officials of the companies told Business Week they had no knowledge of any mob involvement in the trading of their stocks, and the magazine said there is no evidence that company officials have been in league with stock manipulators.
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