Wasn't this scammer posting on this thread..acrua2000 , or something like that?
B.C. Securities Commission - Street Wire
BCSC and SEC target Burnaby man for Internet pump-dump
B.C. Securities Commission BCSEC
Shares issued 0 1899-12-30 close $0
Friday Sep 15 2000 Street Wire
Also Ontario Securities Commission (ONSEC)
Also (U:EGNS)
Also (U:RSIS)
Also (U:AMCM)
Also (U:USSEC)
Also (U:ATCC)
TARGETED COMPANIES "WOULD BE BOUGHT OUT BY BLUE CHIPS"
by Stockwatch Business Reporter
The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission has accused a 24-year-old man living in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, B.C., of using the Internet to pump and dump five OTC Bulletin Board stocks in a scheme that netted him at least $42,750 in only four weeks earlier this summer. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)
In documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the SEC says the regulator has issued a temporary restraining order against Jesse Hogan, preventing him from any future alleged frauds on the market, and has also frozen his assets. The SEC was assisted in its investigation by the B.C. Securities Commission and the Ontario Securities Commission. It did not elaborate on what kind of assistance the two regulators provided, and a spokesman for the BCSC declined substantive comment on the case, saying the matter was still under investigation. A spokesman for the OSC was unavailable for comment. Assistance also came from the U.S. National Association of Securities Dealers.
The SEC alleges Mr. Hogan's activities included hyping shares on discussion forums by spamming message boards combined with E-mail spam during a relatively brief period from July 21 and Aug. 22.
Using numerous aliases in hundreds of postings and numerous spam E-mails, Mr. Hogan claimed that a well-known "blue chip" company would soon acquire the outstanding shares of the targeted company at a substantial premium to its current market price. He then "sold his shares into the buying surge created by his fraudulent postings and messages," the SEC alleges. While Mr. Hogan gained no less than $42,750 from his activities, investors face potential losses totalling $931,000, it states.
Using information taken from his TD Waterhouse Investor Services account, the SEC says Mr. Hogan describes himself as a sorter for a delivery service and a salesman for a Burnaby tool store. Waterhouse also supplied investigators with tapes of conversations between a broker and someone idetifying himself as Jesse Hogan.
The SEC claims Mr. Hogan's pump-and-dump scheme involved five thinly traded OTC-BB companies -- Astrocom Corp. (now trading at around 40 cents), Microtel International Inc. (now about 60 cents), AM Communications Inc. ($1), Egan Systems Inc. (12.5 cents) and RSI Systems Inc. (69 cents).
A look at the each company's chart indicates varying degrees of unusual trading activity from July 21 to Aug. 22. The most pronounced is that of Astrocom, which in the latter part of July soared from the mid-40-cent range to over $1.50 on unusually high volume of 1.6 million shares. Also making a strong run was Egan Systems, which in mid-August spiked to 30 cents from around 12 cents on unusually high volume of more than two million shares. Microtel in late July also ran to the high-80-cent level from under 50 cents on unusual volume of about a million shares.
The SEC claims Mr. Hogan followed the same steps in each of the five pumps and dumps. It described the alleged Astrocom manipulation in detail. The first step was to acquire a position, in this case 25,000 shares at under 50 cents on July 18, for a total cost of $11,260. Then, after the market closed on July 20, Mr. Hogan took the next step and unleashed a "full-scale Internet message board and e-mail campaign to pump up Astrocom's stock price," the SEC said in court documents requesting a freeze on his assets.
Using previously created alias screen names, Mr. Hogan posted 438 identical messages on hundreds of Yahoo! Finance, Raging Bull and Silicon Investor message boards. In the postings, Mr. Hogan claimed that JDS Uniphase Corp. would acquire Astrocom for $7 a share. The SEC adds that Mr. Hogan made the same claim in E-mails that he sent out at the same time as the postings. In its application for a temporary restraining order, the SEC says the message header for Mr. Hogan's Yahoo! posting read, in bold lettering, "JDSU to acquire ATCC (NASDAQ:OTCBB)." Mr. Hogan also allegedly posted that JDS was "reportedly acquiring" Astrocom and that Astrocom is "highly likely to be acquired due to consolidation in the broadband, wireless, and fibre optic networking industry."
On Yahoo!, among the numerous aliases the suspicious postings were signed under included "stockboy2002" and "ron_thomas_2001."
Those wishing to read the postings in question, however, will be disappointed. Yahoo! appears to have removed all postings for all the companies in question and in fact there are no current discussion forums for any of the companies in question on Yahoo!
Raging Bull, however, has only removed the offending spam, but comments made soon after the July 20 spam can still be read. A sample from Raging Bull include comments from "ksuave" on July 21. Apparently, one poster sought to give credence to the spam hype. Ksuave responded, "Give it up, weasle .. there was not one single post here today by anyone trying to perpetuate the spammed rumor. Everyone knows what it was, and your attempt to reiterate its unreliability only draws attention to what your ulterior motives might be."
Raging Bull has also posted a message on the Astrocom message board warning that spam was discovered on the thread and officials of the posting service encouraged members to report any instances of it in the future.
The SEC says Mr. Hogan "knew that the false statements would drive up the price of Astrocom and he intended to benefit from the run-up by selling into the inflated market." Also, the Burnaby resident took "significant steps" to conceal his identity and create the appearance of investor interest in Astrocom by his use of multiple Internet aliases.
After pumping Astrocom on July 20, he then sold out on July 21, realizing $12,159 in profits after having bought the shares only three days earlier.
The SEC contends Mr. Hogan repeated his manipulations with the other companies. In the case of Microtel, he claimed that either Lucent Technologies or F5 Networks would soon acquire the company for a minimum of $5 a share. With AM Communications, he claimed that either Motorola or Hormonic would buy it out for $8 a share. With Egan Systems, the lure was a Corel buyout at $1.50. With RSI Systems, he did not identify the supposedly acquiring companies, only that they were two "potential bidders listed on the NASDAQ" and that the price was about $4.
The SEC says it has "very strong" circumstantial evidence linking Mr. Hogan to the scheme. The timing of his trades is suspicious and, the regulator claims, Internet tracing information reconfirms the conclusion that Mr. Hogan was behind the manipulation. His name was on the E-mails and, "according to the provider of this e-mail address, the address was created through an account of its subscriber, who resides at the same address as Jesse Hogan."
The SEC identified Mr. Hogan's Internet service provider as Excite@Home -- at least, this was the service that was used not only to send the spam E-mails, but also to create various alias screen names linked to hundreds of the Internet message board postings. @Home is a service that is also carried by Rogers Communications Inc. In a response to a subpoena, Excite confirmed that the E-mail address was created through the account of its subscriber, Michael Hogan, who lives at the same address as Jesse Hogan.
While the SEC says the ISP provided assistance in this matter, it did not expressly identify the financial institution where his frozen assets are held. It referred only to "a Canadian bank" in some documents. In another, however, it referred to a chequing account with Toronto-Dominion Bank.
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