Hmmm. Chalem and Joe Logan were business associates. Logan may have been the unidentified man who, with Allen Conkling, discovered the bodies and reported the murders to the police. Remember AVIA, and Logan's attempt to take over Kiwi Airlines?
Well, now Kiwi surfaces again, in connection with E-Pawn, recently nailed by the SEC:
E-Pawn.com Hits Obstacles In Effort to Improve Image
By AARON ELSTEIN
WSJ.COM
E-Pawn.com wants to make one thing clear: It isn't affiliated with organized crime. That might be small consolation for the Florida company, which until late January was known as Wasatch International and was best known for its unsuccessful efforts to acquire Kiwi International Airlines in 1996. Now involved in "Internet-related activities," E-Pawn.com stock resumed trading Wednesday after a 10-day suspension and promptly plunged 90%.
The company has been reeling since June 14, a blockbuster day for federal regulators as they proudly announced the largest one-day sweep of market fraud in Wall Street history. On the same day, securities regulators suspended trading in E-Pawn.com stock, and federal prosecutors indicted the company's president for manipulating the stock through a New York investment bank that allegedly was infiltrated by the mob.
Prosecutors didn't allege that the president, who resigned the day of the indictment, or E-Pawn.com had connections to the mob. But June 14's heady combination of Mafia, trading suspension, and indictment led some investors and journalists to conclude that E-Pawn.com (www.e-pawn.com) was linked to organized crime, the company says.
On Wednesday, E-Pawn.com issued an "emphatic denial" that management and directors have any links with the Mafia. Its stock, at 1 5/16 on the OTC Bulletin Board when trading was suspended June 14, closed Wednesday at 5/8.
"The company got unfairly got lumped with a big investigation into organized crime," said Alison Madej, a spokeswoman for E-Pawn.com, based in Coral Springs, Fla.
The company said the confusion stems from a press release issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission to highlight the agency's role in the investigation, which also involved the U.S Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The SEC's release was headlined, "Those Charged Include Alleged Members of Organized Crime," and announced that the commission was filing civil suits against 63 people. It later mentioned that e-Pawn.com's stock had been suspended.
E-Pawn officials say that while the facts contained in the release are accurate, their juxtaposition leaves the impression that e-Pawn.com is among the parties charged as
being members of organized crime.
SEC officials disagree. "The release says what it says," a spokesman said. "It is factually accurate."
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said the investigation into e-Pawn.com was directly related to its broader investigation into mob-related crime on Wall Street.
Prosecutors allege that E-Pawn.com's president, chief financial officer and director, Eli Liebowitz, was part of a scheme to pay one million e-Pawn.com shares to bribe brokers
to push the company's stock. According to the indictment, an unidentified person cooperating with the government told Mr. Liebowitz and a stock promoter that the person would also pay Internet sites to tout E-Pawn.com stock to their readers.
Mr. Liebowitz didn't return calls Wednesday.
In April, Mr. Liebowitz allegedly met with a stock promoter and an unidentified witness. According to the indictment, the witness held himself to be a principal at DMN Capital, a
New York investment bank that prosecutors say was infiltrated by reputed mob figures. Activities at the firm played a central role in the government's investigation.
Ms. Madej, the E-Pawn.com spokeswoman, said the federal prosecutors' charges are "not correct with the information we have," but declined to elaborate.
The campaign to promote E-Pawn.com seemed to bring results. Earlier this year, E-Pawn.com was one of the most talked-about companies on the stock chat-site Raging Bull (www.ragingbull.com). Its shares soared from 5/16 in late February to a peak of 10 on March 8. Trading volume, scant earlier in the year, reached more than three million shares per day.
At the time, investors had little information about E-Pawn.com besides some press releases saying it had changed its name from Wasatch International and was planning a host of new Internet-related activities. The company also had plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market by announcing an agreement to merge with Colonel's International, a Tecumseh, Mich., company that runs an auto-parts business and a motorcycle racing track in Minnesota.
Investors looking for specific financial information about E-Pawn.com while its stock was rising were out of luck; the company hadn't disclosed any financial data for over three years. When it issued a regulatory filing in late April, the company said that as of Feb. 29, it had two dollars of assets and zero revenues.
Earlier that month, the company said that its proposed merger with Colonel's International was off because a majority of E-Pawn.com's shareholders didn't approve the deal. Officials at Colonel's International were unavailable for comment.
Write to Aaron Elstein at aaron.elstein@wsj.com |
