"7. I am NOT the “Anthony” named in the GENI matter. I never received $1.2 million nor did I get 1.2 cents." Message 22612249
YET BUD BURRELL OF THESANITYCHECK.COM SAYS YOU DID.
thesanitycheck.com
thesanitycheck.com
BUD IS A LOON THOUGH AND HAS MADE UP MANY THINGS.
BUD BELIEVES THAT CMKX IS GOING TO BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE FINANCIAL SYSTEM.
BUD BURRELL RUNS A PUBLIC COMPANY.
HERE IS BUD'S LARGEST INVESTOR
BUDD BURRELL AND THE BIZARRE STORY OF HIS LARGEST SHAREHOLDER
IN BUDS PRIVATE TRADING SYSTEMS INC (Pink sheets: PVTM), A MR. TERRY RAMSDEN
==========================================================
Terry RAMSDEN
1991 Arrested in America at the request of the Serious Fraud Office, which is trying to extradite him back to Britain. Spends six months in jail in Los Angeles
1992 RAMSDEN agrees to return to Britain where he is declared bankrupt with debts of £100m
1998 Sentenced to 21 months in prison for concealing assets from bankruptcy officials. He serves 10 months
========================================
blogmaverick.com
Naked Shorting - The Real Bad Guys
I got a very interesting email a few minutes ago. I cant say I have fact checked it exhaustively. I havent. Im sure the Naked Shorting Sithmeisters will weigh in with their comments about any perceived or real inaccuracies. Facts can never get in the way of a war, so every side and every word will be spun by all those with something at stake.
Personally, the only thing I have at stake is the ongoing entertainment value of all of this. My 20k shares short of Overstock will continue to do just fine. ( Patrick Byrne, if you want to lend me any of the shares you own and have taken possession of, I would be happy to borrow them and short them).
But I digress. Here is the information I received. You can do your own research before coming to any conlusions. Im sure the comments to this blogpost will be very, very interesting.
Ive been following your blog and have been particularly amused by your postings about Patrick Byrne, Overstock.com and the mysterious people behind the anti-naked shorting movement.
Ive spent quite a bitof time tracking a vast network of corrupt executives, financiers and brokers who route discounted shares of obscure U.S. companies overseas through sham private placements and venture capital deals and then resell them to foreign investors at marked up prices, through unlicensed securities boiler rooms
A few weeks ago, I learned that shares of one such company, Private Trading Systems Inc. of Scottsdale, Ariz. (Pink sheets: PVTM), were being offered to European investors by an apparently fictitious brokerage calling itself Anglo Swiss Consulting (fictitious in the sense that it is not registered with any nations regulatory agency and that its Internet site is something of a Potemkin storefront.)
When I looked into Private Trading Systems, I noted that its chairman, chief executive, treasurer and corporate secretary is none other than C. Austin Bud BURRELL, whose dire warnings about naked shorting have been featured at NCANS.net, on the Bob OBrien blog and similar Internet sites.
BURRELL also has been a litigation consultant for John OQuinn, the Texas lawyer representing Overstock.com in its suit against Rocker Partners, Gradient Analytics and other defendants who allegedly undermined the companys stock through nefarious shorting activities.
Its worth noting that shares of Endovasc Inc., another company that is part of the anti-naked shorting coalition, also were sold by a foreign boiler room known as Bellador Advisory Services.
Theres another interesting aspect to Private Trading Systems. According to the Form 10-12 that Private Trading filed earlier this month with the SEC, its biggest shareholder, with a 43.2 percent equity stake, is T.P. RAMSDEN.
The filing said RAMSDEN controlled the rights to the technology behind the trading system that the company is developing to allow institutional investors to privately trade securities, instruments, or any financial asset that is capable of being converted to electronic form.
What Private Trading Systems SEC filing did not say is that T.P. RAMSDEN is Terry RAMSDEN, once a highflying British bond trader, who pleaded guilty to investment fraud in the 1990s and later was convicted of bankruptcy fraud. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, and served 10.
RAMSDEN is making a comeback of sorts, and has raised eyebrows in British investment circles by taking positions in several small public companies whose shares have moved upward after his arrival (Hansard Group is one example).
I offer this tale as yet another example of the kinds of activities that members of the anti-naked shorting coalition have been engaging in, while claiming that it is their detractors who are involved in dishonest undertakings.
Feel free to use this information as the basis for a new blog post
Let the comments begin.
===============================================
Terry RAMSDEN
1991 Arrested in America at the request of the Serious Fraud Office, which is trying to extradite him back to Britain. Spends six months in jail in Los Angeles
1992 RAMSDEN agrees to return to Britain where he is declared bankrupt with debts of £100m
1998 Sentenced to 21 months in prison for concealing assets from bankruptcy officials. He serves 10 months
---------------------------------------
RAMSDEN's back and banking on Atalza
The returning big-time gambler tells Greg Wood why he is punting on a 66-1 outsider
Saturday April 3, 2004
The Guardian
The word was out last summer but there were many who had their doubts. Terry RAMSDEN, the whisperers said. He's back. Yeah, right, we said. We'll believe it when we see it. Then we did see it, and still we didn't quite believe. There he was in the winners' enclosure at Lingfield in December. ####-sparrer Terry, Thatcherism's poster boy, the loudest and brashest Flash Harry of them all.
"My name's Terry," he once said. "I'm a stockbroker from Enfield. I've got long hair and I like a bet." Didn't he just. At one point in the mid-1980s RAMSDEN was said to be worth £150m, he had 100 horses in training and regularly bet in sums that would pay off the average mortgage. But then he crashed and burned along with the markets, and lost the lot. The last time anyone heard, he was bankrupt, in jail, and out of the racing game for good.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But it certainly sounds like RAMSDEN on the phone. An interview? No problem. You can tell everyone how I'm going to give £350,000 to the kids of Liverpool if Royal Atalza wins the National. Great, Terry, thanks. So where are you based these days?
"Based? I'm not really based anywhere right now. I've bought a house in Northamptonshire next door to David Beckham's, but I haven't moved in yet. I've got a place on the waterfront in Chelsea but it's still not decorated. So I'm just having to live at the Conrad Hotel."
It's him all right. He's back. Believe it.
The next morning, we are sitting in the breakfast room at the (five-star, suite-only) Conrad. There are three of us at the table: me, Terry, and Terry's self-belief. It is a tangible presence which cannot be ignored. He has been through so much, but in this, at least, he hasn't changed a bit.
He always was cocksure, and even the six months he spent in a hell-hole of a prison in Los Angeles in 1991, awaiting extradition to Britain to face fraud charges, did not knock it out of him. Gang warfare was raging all around, and he fully expected to come home in a body bag.
"Yeah, that was rough, and it was hard to stay alive," he says, and for a moment his fizz goes flat at the memory. Not for long, though. "But what I always say is that I was blessed. Not with the face, it's a shame about that, but I was blessed with a fantastic brain and a strong heart, and I think I've always opened my heart to things that need to be done. Some people have pretty faces, and some people have pretty arses. I have assets, and I've used them."
He returned to Britain in February 1992, was declared bankrupt shortly afterwards, and received a two-year suspended sentence in 1993 after pleading guilty to recklessly inducing fresh investment in his company, Glen International.
He could not escape jail five years later, though, when he was sentenced to 21 months for failing to disclose £300,000 worth of assets, a breach of the Insolvency Act. He said that he was using the money to buy a house for his wife and child, in an attempt to save his collapsing marriage. He emerged in 1999, broke and alone.
"I went all the way down," he says. "I had no friends, nowhere to live, I was bankrupt and I'd just been in prison, and that's probably as far down as you can go. The easiest thing to do would have been to boo-hoo and give up, to end up in the gutter drinking wine and feeling sorry for myself, but you'll never hear me boo-hoo. I'm not in the giving-up business. If I was I wouldn't be here, would I? I always thought I'd get my second chance, and now I have, and I've earned it."
RAMSDEN's second chance is founded on a revolutionary trading system for securities and currencies, which works a little like a betting exchange for the stock market.
"In terms of matched order, it would not be dissimilar to Betfair," he says. "In terms of speed and capacity, it would far outweigh anything that anybody has seen before. How much money is that worth? I don't know, but it will be a very, very large amount of money. I mean, a large amount."
But RAMSDEN has other priorities these days. "Other than revolutionising trading, the other thing I really want to do is build a major children's hospital. I've got a new partner and we're planning to start a family.
"And, in June, my court case [against the Inland Revenue, which forced him into bankruptcy] comes up. I can't say too much about it, but I'm 100% sure that I will be totally exonerated, and the reality of what happened to Terry RAMSDEN will become clear for the world to see.
"They might think they'll get some nice, quiet deal, but guys, you waited too long, and I'm way, way too strong for you now. They've wriggled and jiggled and now, end of June, they pay the bill. No way out, as they say in WWF."
You can only believe him, and he also retains the cheerful, devil-may-care outlook that made him so popular with the punters. It is 19 years now since one of his most spectacular bets, on Mr Snugfit in the National. "The truth of that is that I had half a million quid each way, quote, unquote. Anything else you hear is ########." As for Royal Atalza, an outsider for today's race, "on jumping ability and his rating he should go a long way. He's got a great young jockey [Paul Moloney] and if he's still there with three to go it will take a good one to beat him. But really I just hope the kid rides safe and he comes back in one piece."
Optimism, always optimism, even when his horse is a 66-1 chance. It has carried him back from the edge of the gutter, and the ride has surely not finished yet.
"I always said I wanted to be the first self-made British billionaire, which I wasn't," RAMSDEN says. "Wouldn't it be funny if that's how I ended up? That would be such a crack.
"I think what's different about my life at the moment is that there's a momentum behind me now, and it will be very hard to stop me. I can't be sure I'll win every race but I will always travel strongly and I'm not easily beaten. When you're hot, you're hot, and right now, this time, this place, I'm there. I don't know how long it will last but, right now, I've really got it going on."
A chequered career
1984 Buys the filly Katies for £500,000, which goes on to win the Irish 1,000 Guineas
1986 Lands a £500,000 each-way gamble when Mr Snugfit finishes fourth in the National
1987 RAMSDEN's company Glen International collapses
1988 Is "warned off" racing by the Jockey Club after failing to keep up repayments to Ladbrokes
1991 Arrested in America at the request of the Serious Fraud Office, which is trying to extradite him back to Britain. Spends six months in jail in Los Angeles
1992 RAMSDEN agrees to return to Britain where he is declared bankrupt with debts of £100m
1998 Sentenced to 21 months in prison for concealing assets from bankruptcy officials. He serves 10 months
1999 After release begins building another fortune in the private treaty market. Creates a revolutionary trading system which speeds up the transaction of equities. His new company has a market capitalisation of £250m
2003 The Jockey Club clears RAMSDEN to go racing again and to own horses. Returns to the track in October at Newmarket. His two-year-old Jake The Snake, named after his teenage son, wins the Bet Direct No Q Maiden Stakes at Lingfield in December, his first victory since his return
----------------------------------------------------
"In 1993 it fell to Pownall to sentence Terry RAMSDEN, who had pleaded guilty
to fraudulently inducing investors to invest £90 million in his company Glen
International. A postman's son from Essex, RAMSDEN had become the archetypal "
His Honour Henry Pownall
(Filed: 07/08/2003)
His Honour Henry Pownall, who has died aged 76, became one of the Old
Bailey's most popular and respected judges after a successful career at the
Criminal Bar.
When The Sunday Telegraph ran an article entitled "The Good Judge Guide" in
1987, Pownall was listed among the top 20 members of the bench; he was,
furthermore, said to be one of four judges before whom one could hope to
have "a less run-of-the-mill, perhaps livelier, more entertaining, more
memorable, at any rate more absorbing trial".
Pownall was praised as "a fine judge whose intelligence, tact, fairness and
charisma have won him golden opinions. . . He speaks in a warm, velvety
baritone and reprimands poor, struggling counsel more in pity than in
anger".
As an advocate at the Bar, Pownall's great assets were his charm and obvious
fairness, which tended to make juries desperate to accept what he said; he
was thus a deadly prosecutor. On the bench, he exhibited a self-deprecating
demeanour and unfailing courtesy, as well as an impish sense of humour.
Among the many high-profile cases at which he presided, perhaps the most
complicated was the trial of the three men and a woman who had plotted to
"cleanse" half of the £26 million worth of gold bullion robbed from the
Brinks Mat vault near Heathrow.
At the end of the case, which was beset by fears of "jury nobbling", lasted
more than a year, and cost £7 million, Pownall jailed the defendants for
between five and 10 years. He told them: "There can hardly have been a more
serious case of handling than this."
In 1993 it fell to Pownall to sentence Terry RAMSDEN, who had pleaded guilty
to fraudulently inducing investors to invest £90 million in his company Glen
International. A postman's son from Essex, RAMSDEN had become the archetypal
1980s City whizz-kid, buying racehorses, Walsall football club and being
described by the Racing Post as "the biggest punter in history".
Accepting that RAMSDEN had offended out of criminal financial recklessness
rather than dishonesty, Pownall gave him a two-year suspended prison
sentence.
In one of his last cases on the bench, in 1999, Pownall dismissed an attempt
by City of London police to force newspapers to hand over pictures and notes
of the "carnival against capitalism" demonstration, saying that "necessity"
had to be convincingly established by the police. With its implied reference
to the European Convention on Human Rights, Pownall's judgment was seized on
as a landmark decision regarding the incorporation of the Convention into
British law.
Henry Charles Pownall was born on February 25 1927; he was the fifth
successive generation of his family to supply recruits to the Bar.
On leaving Rugby, Henry joined the Royal Navy, serving on the lower deck in
the Mediterranean at the end of the war. Demobbed in 1948, he went up to
Trinity, Cambridge, to read Law. Called to the Bar by Inner Temple in 1954,
he entered the chambers of G D "Khaki" Roberts, formerly resident leading
counsel at Nuremberg, at 2 Harcourt Buildings.
After pupillage, Pownall began practising in criminal cases on the
South-Eastern Circuit, much of his work coming from the Bank of England, on
whose behalf he prosecuted in banknote cases. He was an understated and
quietly effective advocate, punctilious and scrupulously fair as a
prosecutor.
He was Junior Prosecuting Counsel to the Crown at the Central Criminal Court
(Old Bailey) from 1964 to 1971, and then Senior Prosecuting Counsel from
1971 to 1979, when he took Silk.
Having gained judicial experience as a Recorder of the Crown Court since
1972, and as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey since
1980, he was appointed to the bench as Resident Judge at Knightsbridge Crown
Court in 1984. He was a Permanent Judge at the Central Criminal Court from
1997 to 1999.
Although he was by nature inclined to say what he thought, Pownall allowed
himself to be constrained by his office, but he took the opportunity of his
retirement speech, at the Old Bailey's Court One, to deliver a withering
indictment of "political correctness in all its horrid forms" and a thinly
veiled attack on such directives from the Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine.
Speaking two days after Lord Irvine had launched a revised Equal Treatment
Bench Book, a guide for judges on how to avoid any perception of racial bias
or insensitivity (including the suggestion that judges should respect the
Rastafarian "sacrament" of smoking cannabis), Pownall said: "I find it sad,
even offensive, to be bombarded with bumf from on high telling me I must
disclose any personal interest I might have which might be seen to have some
effect on my judgment - as if I had not conformed since pupillage."
He went on: "There are those who will find prejudice around every corner.
They find it where none exists and they find it where none is intended. It
is time somebody said there is none of it in this building in any of us. We
do as we will be done by."
Henry Pownall was elected a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1976. He was a
Member of the Committee of the National Benevolent Institution and a Freeman
of the City of London.
He was an expert on medals and medal ribbons and the possessor of one of the
largest collections in the country. A past president of the Orders and
Medals Research Society, he was the author of several books on the subject,
including Korean Campaign Medals 1950-53.
Occasionally he was to be seen arriving at court with his beloved dog,
Muffin, on a lead.
Pownall, who died on July 29, married in 1955, Bettine Deverell, who
survives him along with a son and a daughter. Another daughter died in
infancy.
-----------------------------------------
Sources say RAMSDEN may have invested in Enterprises Solutions and similarly tried to get others to invest. RAMSDEN couldn't be reached for comment.
smartmoney.com
But the SEC isn't done. Sources say regulators are looking into a possible connection between some of those European partnerships and British investor Terry RAMSDEN. In the 1980s, RAMSDEN, a noted high-stakes gambler, was listed as Britian's 57th richest man, but he lost most of his fortune when the Japanese stock market collapsed nearly a decade ago. After filing for bankruptcy, he was charged with fraud for trying to conceal some assets and ultimately spent 10 months in jail. Sources say RAMSDEN may have invested in Enterprises Solutions and similarly tried to get others to invest. RAMSDEN couldn't be reached for comment.
Stock Watch
Out of Luck
By Matthew Goldstein Published: May 10, 2000
Click here for more stories by Matthew Goldstein .
Email This Story Print This Story
Save This Story Send Us Your Comments
Add this column to your News Alerts (New!)
The $2.3 Million Hot Potato
It may be hard to believe, but there's $2.3 million sitting in two accounts at a New York brokerage that no one wants to claim.
Securities regulators say the money and stock in the accounts represent some of the ill-gotten gains from the alleged stock scam involving Enterprises Solutions, the Canton, Mass., Internet-security firm. The accounts are registered with two offshore limited partnerships based in the British colony of Gibraltar. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Herbert Cannon, a Florida stock promoter, secretly controlled those entities — a charge Cannon denies.
At a recent hearing in Manhattan federal court to determine whether a temporary freeze on those assets should be lifted, no one appeared to represent the Gibraltar partnerships. In the absence of any objection, U.S. Southern District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum extended the freeze until a trial is held later this year on the underlying civil fraud charges against Enterprises Solutions, Cannon and John Solomon, the company's chief executive. That means Wall Street Equities, the brokerage firm where the accounts are held, can't transfer or release the money to the owners.
Government lawyers had rushed to court on April 6 to obtain a temporary restraining order after they got word that a representative of the offshore entities had asked Wall Street Equities to liquidate the accounts and transfer the proceeds overseas. In court papers, regulators contend Cannon personally instructed brokers at Wall Street Equities to sell shares of Enterprises Solutions when the company's stock was rising sharply earlier this year.
The SEC suspended trading in Enterprises Solutions stock on March 30, after its shares shot from $7 to just under $22. Though the 10-day suspension expired at midnight April 12, the stock has yet to resume trading on the OTC Bulletin Board. For the past two weeks, shares have sporadically traded on the Pink Sheets, the loosely regulated trading platform run by the National Quotation Bureau. Daily volume has averaged a few thousand shares, compared to the 260,000 shares that changed hands the day before trading was halted. At last count, shares of Enterprises Solutions were selling for $7.
— Matthew Goldstein
THOMAS J. MURPHY was no stranger to risk. A former craps dealer on the Las Vegas strip, Murphy enjoyed playing high-stakes poker and dabbling in speculative stocks. But sometime on March 31, the longtime Las Vegas resident decided he'd overplayed his hand.
For weeks, Murphy had been recommending a tiny stock called Enterprises Solutions (EPSO) to just about anyone he met — relatives, friends, even people he played poker with in the casinos. And for a time, it seemed his tip was a winner. Between March 21 and March 29, shares of the fledgling Internet-security company rocketed from $7.38 to nearly $22 on the National Association of Securities Dealers' OTC Bulletin Board.
Then, on March 30, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading. The SEC was concerned, it said, about the veracity of several press releases issued by the company. People whom Murphy had advised to invest in the company began calling his home, wanting to know what was going on. Murphy, apparently as distraught as they, didn't know what to tell them.
Around 10:30 a.m. PT on March 31, Murphy called his wife of 24 years, Virginia, at her job as a casino entertainment director and left a message on her voice mail saying he loved her. Then the 49-year-old marketing executive hand-wrote a three-page letter to her and their two college-age children, drove to a shooting range, rented a gun and took his life. In his letter, Murphy instructed his wife to tell anyone who asked that he had believed Enterprises Solutions was a legitimate company.
"I think he was mortified and ashamed,'' said Virginia Murphy in a recent interview. "I think the phone calls upset him. When it stopped trading, it upset him. He felt unbearable guilt. It wasn't just about our finances. He felt personal responsibility."
In the days immediately after Murphy's death, things got worse for investors in Enterprises Solutions. The SEC filed civil fraud charges against the Canton, Mass., company and Chief Executive John A. Solomon, charging them with issuing misleading press releases about a product the company claimed to have developed to protect Web sites from hack attacks. Regulators contend the company has no such product. In fact, SEC lawyers say, Enterprises Solutions isn't much of a company at all — it has no revenues, no customers and just a handful of employees. The company and Solomon deny the fraud charges and insist the company was on the verge of lining up customers when the SEC swooped in.
Federal regulators also are pursuing fraud charges against Herbert Cannon, a Boca Raton, Fla., stock promoter whom the SEC alleges was the scam's mastermind. According to the Commission, Cannon, who has a long history of fraud convictions and securities violations, secretly controls two foreign limited partnerships that at one time owned nearly 15% of Enterprises Solutions' 3.2 million outstanding shares. In all, 61% of the company's outstanding shares are owned by 15 European entities.
Regulators say that while Enterprises Solutions stock was soaring, Cannon and some of the European partnerships were selling thousands of shares through accounts held at a New York brokerage, taking in at least $2.3 million. Cannon denies having "any legal or beneficial ownership interest" in the accounts.
But the SEC isn't done. Sources say regulators are looking into a possible connection between some of those European partnerships and British investor Terry RAMSDEN. In the 1980s, RAMSDEN, a noted high-stakes gambler, was listed as Britian's 57th richest man, but he lost most of his fortune when the Japanese stock market collapsed nearly a decade ago. After filing for bankruptcy, he was charged with fraud for trying to conceal some assets and ultimately spent 10 months in jail. Sources say RAMSDEN may have invested in Enterprises Solutions and similarly tried to get others to invest. RAMSDEN couldn't be reached for comment.
While SEC lawyers won't comment on Murphy's ebullient stock touting, there's no indication that they're looking at anything he may have done or said. Still, there's no easy explanation for why he was so eager to spread the word about Enterprises Solutions — or, for that matter, why some investors took his advice. Virginia Murphy claims her husband simply was a gregarious fellow and compares his enthusiasm for Enterprises Solutions to getting "caught in a whirlwind." Whatever his motivation, Murphy's story sheds light on how investors are drawn to such speculative stocks.
One investor says he learned of Enterprises Solutions from Murphy during a February trip to Las Vegas, where the two met in the poker room of Steve Wynn's splashy new Bellagio Hotel & Casino. The investor, who didn't want to be identified, recalls Murphy as a boisterous man who seemed to be a regular in the poker room. Over the course of an evening, Murphy told him he had a hot stock tip, then suggested he invest in Enterprises Solutions.
Murphy gave the investor his card, and over the next few weeks the two had more conversations by phone. Each time, the investor says, Murphy became more effusive about Enterprises Solutions, once concluding a voice message by exuberantly shouting, "EPSO! EPSO!" The investor says he finally bought 400 shares in late March, when the stock was trading around $15. When the SEC later halted trading, he called Murphy, who sounded "haggard." Murphy told him his phone "had been ringing off the hook."
According to other investors, Murphy's wife and some of his friends, Murphy, who spent more than 20 years dealing craps at the Tropicana Casino before taking a job marketing health-food products over the Internet, was indeed a fixture in Vegas's casino poker rooms. And he liked to chat up anyone who'd listen. "Murph," as he was known, "was advising quite a few people to invest in [Enterprises Solutions]," says Margaret Larsen, one of his partners at Marketing Opportunities Group. "I was probably one of the few people he didn't tell about it."
Murphy's wife says she doesn't know how her husband learned of the company. She's not even sure how much he invested. A friend says Murphy got hooked during a conversation with Enterprises Solutions' investor relations manager, Vancouver businessman Eugene Hodgson — whom he met in a casino. Hodgson, identified as a contact person on several Enterprises Solutions press releases, declined to comment.
It's perhaps fitting that Las Vegas — which in recent years has emerged as an epicenter of stock manipulation schemes and "pay-for-hire" newsletters that tout stocks for a fee — would play a role in the Enterprises Solutions affair. Not only did news of the stock spread in poker rooms along the Strip, but the company came into existence after taking over the corporate shell of a now-defunct gaming company called American Casinos International. (The SEC says that Cannon — whose home city, Boca Raton, is another spawning ground for stock scams — was instrumental in negotiating the 1999 quick-change maneuver, commonly known as a "reverse merger.")
Moreover, many Wall Street professionals say investing in a Bulletin Board company is little better than gambling. With few, if any, analysts following the 4,900 stocks that trade on the Bulletin Board, it's hard to find independent assessments of a company's prospects. And even though the National Association of Securities Dealers has stiffened financial reporting requirements, regulators say the market, with its pint-sized stocks, remains a breeding ground for fraud.
Nonetheless, small investors are often drawn to Bulletin Board stocks by bargain prices. Before April's big market sell-off, more investors than ever were pouring money into Bulletin Board stocks; the NASD estimates that trading activity was running 366% higher than a year earlier. Recent statistics show a subsequent fall-off in Bulletin Board trading — probably a good thing, given the perils.
Ironically, Murphy's wife says no one knew better than her husband the dangers of gambling — whether at cards, dice or stocks. He knew that one's luck could change quickly, she says, and that there are no sure things. So why, she wonders, didn't he apply those lessons to Enterprises Solutions?
"I have this three-page letter and it's the last thing he'll ever say to me," Virginia Murphy laments, "and half of a page is about this stupid stock."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While officials mysteriously halted trading of Toronto-based Silversword on the Vancouver exchange, Mr. RAMSDEN's world was falling apart in London. "Terry RAMSDEN, who was once Britain's fifty-seventh richest man but ended up becoming one of the country's most famous bankrupts after running up gambling losses of more than 100 million pounds," stated the Guardian newspaper in a recent article. Mr. RAMSDEN was also well on his way to jail.
British racing and gambling journalist Mark Siggers of Alfa, an industry news service, notes that Mr. RAMSDEN, a familiar face at horse tracks around the world, reputedly lost 58 million pounds to bookies in three years after betting heavily and disastrously on his own stable of racehorses. The bookies and authorities found out too late that Glen International, which also happened to be a major shareholder of Silversword, was about to collapse.
"Pursued by the Serious Fraud Office, RAMSDEN fled to the U.S. in 1991 and fought extradition procedures from a Los Angeles jail cell. When he eventually volunteered to return, receiving a two-year suspended jail sentence for having fraudulently induced finance houses to invest in Glen International," reports Alfa. The judge reportedly found Mr. RAMSDEN's guilt was related to criminal recklessness instead of deliberate fraud.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEC target Rosenfeld nabbed in money laundering sting
2002-08-16 17:36 PT - Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
Bay Street penny stock lawyer Simon Rosenfeld, a past securities violator, has been charged with three counts of money laundering in a Canadian sting operation related to Bermuda Short. The Miami-based overall FBI-RCMP operation is the broadest U.S.-Canadian joint probe of stock-market-related money laundering in recent history. Of 58 individuals named in 23 separate grand jury indictments unsealed Thursday in Miami, 20 were Canadian, including Mark Valentine, the suspended head of Toronto brokerage Thomson Kernaghan, controversial former Vancouver lawyer Martin Chambers and numerous Vancouver and Toronto penny stock players.
The top-secret arrest of Mr. Rosenfeld, 55, was more than two months ago, the first known arrest related to the overall Bermuda Short operation. FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Frank Figliuzzi confirms the first of the 58 current parties was arrested 6:30 Tuesday morning, as more than 100 FBI agents fanned out across the U.S. in the co-ordinated arrest operation, which ended Wednesday. A total of 29 targets were arrested in the greater Miami area, Boca Raton and other cities in South Florida.
While Special Agent Figliuzzi was unable to make any comment on the Rosenfeld case, another high-ranking law enforcement official confirmed the Toronto lawyer is related to the overall Bermuda Short operation. "There is a connection," the official told Stockwatch. Although the RCMP-based "E" Division, which handled the Chambers sting, dubbed "E-POS," presumably for "point-of-sale," notes its investigation lasted three years, the Toronto Rosenfeld case is believed to be much more recent.
It is unclear whether Mr. Rosenfeld, like Mr. Chambers, was snared for offering to launder drug money. In fact, even though the whole outline of the Rosenfeld case was presented in Ontario Provincial Court at Old City Hall in Toronto Wednesday, almost every detail is covered by a broad publication ban requested by the lawyer's lawyer.
While publication bans at Canadian bail hearings are relatively routine, the Rosenfeld ban is so broad that a Toronto RCMP spokeswoman told an inquiring Stockwatch reporter Thursday that even the identities of the two parties cannot be revealed. This was particularly surprising, as the reporter had made no direct or indirect mention of Mr. Rosenfeld, had no knowledge of his predicament at the time, and was specifically inquiring about the Toronto individuals named Thursday, especially Mr. Valentine.
Left unexplained is exactly why there is such a fuss about Mr. Rosenfeld, and why is case is so sensitive that a respected Canadian judge would agree to a publication ban so broad that even the parties' names were protected. Stockwatch has since confirmed that the names are no longer subject to such a gag order.
Here is what Mr. Rosenfeld and his defence lawyer are so desperate to keep a secret. For the record, Mr. Rosenfeld has been charged with three counts relating to money laundering. The Toronto penny stock lawyer was charged June 4 with one count each of money laundering and possession of proceeds of an alleged crime. A month later, on July 5, a third count, also of money laundering, was added to the list.
Co-accused Sotirios Phronomadis, believed to be a secondary player, was also charged June 4 with two counts relating to money laundering. Both men face a next court date of Sept. 13 at 9 a.m. in Court 114, unless Mr. Rosenfeld and his lawyer manage to get the date switched or shroud the case in further secrecy.
It is not known whether Mr. Rosenfeld, like Mr. Chambers, was snared in a sting to launder Colombian cocaine funds, or some other operational premise. In the Chambers operation, an undercover RCMP corporal and an undercover FBI special agent posed as Colombian narco-cartel operatives anxious to launder drug money through banks in Canada, the U.S., especially Miami, and offshore.
While Mr. Rosenfeld, like his co-accused, remains presumed innocent until proven guilty, he is hardly the most respected lawyer on Bay Street.
Mr. Rosenfeld's biggest claim to fame, at least in penny-stock circles, is a $2.82-million penny stock fraud judgment the United States Securities and Exchange Commission won against him in March of last year. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)
The combined judgment against Mr. Rosenfeld gave him full credit for his key role in the "pump and dump" promotion of Synpro Environmental Services, a Nasdaq Small Cap Market stock, between 1991 and 1994. The SEC claims Mr. Rosenfeld, the former president, treasurer and director of Synpro, violated a number of securities regulations in the fraudulent scheme.
Mr. Rosenfeld, 54, earlier served as a director of Al Shefsky's Silversword Corp. and SFP International, while fellow Synpro director and defendant Terry Kochanowski, 37, also of Toronto, earlier served as a director of United Gunn Resources. None of these three companies were involved in the regulatory proceedings. Mr. Kochanowski and bribed Colorado broker John F. Yakimczyk, 60, settled their Synpro prosecutions earlier.
In a consent settlement in January, 2000, Mr. Kochanowski agreed to disgorge $50,000 of illicit profits, but payment was waived and no fine was levied, based on a "demonstrated inability to pay." Both Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Kochanowski have been banned as directors or officers of a public company.
In a consent settlement with the SEC in April, 2000, Mr. Yakimczyk agreed to disgorgement of $139,500 in illicit profits, but payment of all but $15,000 was waived, and no fine was levied, based on the promoter's plea of poverty. In a July, 1996, settlement with the National Association of Securities Dealers, Mr. Yakimczyk agreed to a reprimand, a two-year prohibition on association in any capacity with a brokerage, and a $25,000 fine.
The SEC claims Mr. Rosenfeld, with the assistance of Mr. Kochanowski, masterminded and orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to falsely inflate the value of shares of Synpro, formerly known as Sherwood Corp., and made numerous registration violations including unregistered distributions of offshore shares. "For instance, Rosenfeld directed Synpro to overstate the value of the company's assets by falsely reporting, among other things, that Synpro owned a $15-million, 17-acre property on the Isle of Rhodes, Greece. Rosenfeld also failed to disclose the related party nature of numerous transactions to which Synpro was a party," states the SEC.
The regulator also notes the Toronto lawyer made numerous moves to "condition" the market for Synpro shares to sell his secret holdings, including making undisclosed stock and/or cash kickbacks to broker Mr. Yakimczyk, of Aurora, Colo., and other promoters, for inducing investors to buy the stock. The SEC claims that Mr. Kochanowski was also a central player, arranging and keeping track of the bribe payments.
In a final judgment entered March 12, 2001, by United States District Court Judge William Pauley III for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Rosenfeld was ordered to pay a total of $2,816,764. This amount includes $1.09-million in disgorgement, $630,000 in prejudgment interest and $1.09-million in civil penalties.
Under the direction of Mr. Rosenfeld from December, 1991, to December, 1994, Synpro claimed to be involved in international real estate development and in the recycling of waste tires into marketable byproducts. Until March, 1993, the company was headquartered in both Portchester, N.Y., and Toronto, before relocating to Conyers, Ga.
In 1991, Synpro reported its acquisition of Ramia Holdings, a Cypriot company controlled by Giovanni Ilardo, an Italian resident, for 5.62 million restricted shares. The sole asset of Ramia was Italhellas SA, a company based in Rhodes, Greece, whose sole purported asset was 17 acres of property on the Isle of Rhodes. Synpro valued the property and the shares at $15-million. Neither Synpro nor Italhellas own or have ever owned property on the Isle of Rhodes, however, and Synpro accordingly overstated its assets by $15-million.
Synpro also claimed the Greek government made $13.5-million in grants and loans for development of the property, but this also was allegedly false. In the second dubious property deal, Synpro claimed in July of 1992 that it acquired 100 per cent of Inmobiliaria Medialuna SA, an Equatoguinean corporation, from three companies: Croyden Investments, Nesden Management and Korsal Finance SA. Synpro claimed that IMSA owned the Hotel Medialuna, a purported resort hotel located in the west African country of Equatorial Guinea, valued at $20-million.
Three months later, in October of 1992, Synpro and Mr. Rosenfeld were informed by IMSA that the Presidency of Equatorial Guinea had transferred ownership of the hotel to the government. IMSA twice informed Synpro and Mr. Rosenfeld that it was proceeding to annul its agreement with Synpro. The SEC claims Synpro and Mr. Rosenberg knew of or recklessly disregarded the significant risks and uncertainties concerning the true ownership of the hotel.
The SEC also claims that Synpro issued 362,500 shares to a consultant, Euro-Pacific Investments & Trading, as compensation for "professional services rendered" in connection with the acquisition of the Rhodes property, but it forgot to disclose that in reality Euro-Pacific was a British Virgin Islands shell controlled by Mr. Rosenfeld. At the time the shares were issued, the Toronto lawyer was both president and secretary of Euro-Pacific, which had business addresses in London and Tortola.
Later in 1992, Synpro falsely claimed it had obtained a $5-million line of credit from Societe Financiere Privee SA, a private Swiss bank based in Geneva. Synpro also issued 7.2 million shares to Elije, another BVI shell with business addresses in Geneva and Tortola, but forgot to mention the offshore shell was controlled by Mr. Rosenfeld. The company paid four million shares to Elije as payment for a $1-million fee for arranging the purported $5-million line of credit, and 3.2 million shares in payment of a $1.6-million fee for "structuring and consulting services" in connection with Synpro's acquisition of IMSA.
The SEC claims that from August of 1992 through February of 1995, 4.23 million of the 7.2 million shares issued to Elije were sold to public investors in the U.S. and Canada. About 735,000 of the shares were sold through accounts in Elije's name at various registered broker-dealers, while 3.8 million of the shares issued to Elije were transferred to brokerage accounts in the name of Merchant House Internationale Populaire SA. Of these shares, 3.5 million were sold in the U.S. and Canada through accounts in the name of Merchant House at various brokerages. The SEC claims that Merchant House is another BVI shell controlled by Mr. Rosenfeld.
The 4.23 million shares sold generated proceeds of $1.05-million, and almost all of the proceeds were remitted to bank accounts controlled by Mr. Rosenfeld. The SEC claims that as part of the fraudulent scheme, at least 1.32 million of the 7.2 million Synpro shares issued to Elije were delivered to "various persons" for their efforts in boosting the stock price by inducing the public to buy the stock.
In addition, at least 76,000 of the 362,500 shares issued to Euro-Pacific were delivered, and at least $200,000 was paid in cash, to "various persons" to arrange public buying. While Mr. Rosenfeld was the alleged mastermind and controlling figure, the SEC notes that Mr. Kochanowski was a central player, and he arranged for and kept track of the kickback payments to brokers.
Three years before embarking on the fraudulent Synpro pump and dump, Mr. Rosenfeld was a key player in another troubled penny stock promotion, Silversword, which he departed in 1990. He was not the most distinguished Silversword player, however. That title goes to Howe Street player Terrance Philip RAMSDEN, also known as Terrence RAMSDEN, the controversial flamed-out expatriate British horse racing gambler and penny stock promoter. A decade ago, Mr. RAMSDEN achieved the rare distinction of joining the select list of penny stock players deemed unfit for even the former Vancouver Stock Exchange, which was dubbed at the time as the Scam Capital of the World by Forbes magazine.
On Howe Street, Mr. RAMSDEN is best known for his rocky reign over Silversword, a controversial Toronto company listed on the VSE. In mid-1990, two years after Mr. RAMSDEN took control of Silversword, shocked VSE officials abruptly halted trading after they suddenly twigged in to some sort of suspicious trading. That fall, the exchange demanded Mr. RAMSDEN be given the boot before it would lift the trading suspension, without making public any details of his troubles with authorities.
Mr. RAMSDEN's Silversword saga traces back to September, 1987, when the VSE halted trading of Canadian Estate Land Corp., a one-year-old VSE shell, amid a two-step reverse takeover in which the London financier's Panther Oil and Gas Ltd. was vended into Lynx Petroleum Ltd. and Lynx was vended into Canadian Estate. The deal gave Mr. RAMSDEN 95-per-cent control of Lynx, resulting in him becoming the major shareholder of Canadian Estate.
Mr. RAMSDEN opted not to join the board, which was led by Alan Shefsky, now a TSX Venture Exchange diamond stock promoter, and Mr. Rosenfeld, the Toronto lawyer. When the deal closed in March, 1988, Canadian Estate changed names to Silversword, which began trading at $4.05. (All Silversword figures are in Canadian dollars.) The thinly traded stock slipped to $1 by that August but bounced back to end the year at $1.75.
1989 was a banner year for Silversword. The stock more than doubled to $3.70 in early February amid increasing trading volume, then peaked at $7 that August.
Silversword trading was even more volatile in early 1990, with the stock collapsing from $2.50 that January to 68 cents five weeks later, then abruptly quadrupling to $3.05 a month after that, in early March.
Three months later, on June 1, 1990, the VSE abruptly halted trading at $2, "pending clarification of market activity." Later that month the exchange upgraded its action to a trading suspension, citing concerns over both the market activity and the composition of Silversword's board of directors. (Mr. Rosenfeld, who served a stint as chairman, had already left the board that February.)
Silversword's controversial collapse was no doubt embarrassing to its marquee director, former federal cabinet minister Eugene Whelan, whose claim to fame was serving 12 years as agriculture minister under the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau. (Mr. Whelan was subsequently named Senator Whelan by current Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 1996, but he resigned in July, 1999, as the senate, plagued by no-shows and sleepers, nudges out members at age 75.)
The only sliver of detail to emerge on the Silversword debacle came on Nov. 22, 1990. "The company has been advised by the VSE that trading of its shares will not resume on the exchange until such time as Mr. Terence RAMSDEN, the principal shareholder of the company, divests himself of his holdings in Silversword," stated Silversword head Raymond Barlett, an associate of Mr. RAMSDEN, in a terse press release.
Silversword shares never resumed trading on the VSE and the Vancouver penny stock exchange delisted the stock in May, 1993. (By this time, Mr. Rosenfeld's fraudulent promotion of an unrelated penny stock on Nasdaq was at its peak.)
Nowhere in the VSE's public notices or Silversword press releases was there any mention of Mr. RAMSDEN's serious troubles with British authorities, as exchange authorities usually liked to sweep any emerging scandals under the carpet as the targets were swept out the door.
While officials mysteriously halted trading of Toronto-based Silversword on the Vancouver exchange, Mr. RAMSDEN's world was falling apart in London. "Terry RAMSDEN, who was once Britain's fifty-seventh richest man but ended up becoming one of the country's most famous bankrupts after running up gambling losses of more than 100 million pounds," stated the Guardian newspaper in a recent article. Mr. RAMSDEN was also well on his way to jail.
British racing and gambling journalist Mark Siggers of Alfa, an industry news service, notes that Mr. RAMSDEN, a familiar face at horse tracks around the world, reputedly lost 58 million pounds to bookies in three years after betting heavily and disastrously on his own stable of racehorses. The bookies and authorities found out too late that Glen International, which also happened to be a major shareholder of Silversword, was about to collapse.
"Pursued by the Serious Fraud Office, RAMSDEN fled to the U.S. in 1991 and fought extradition procedures from a Los Angeles jail cell. When he eventually volunteered to return, receiving a two-year suspended jail sentence for having fraudulently induced finance houses to invest in Glen International," reports Alfa. The judge reportedly found Mr. RAMSDEN's guilt was related to criminal recklessness instead of deliberate fraud.
Bad as this might sound, Mr. RAMSDEN's troubles were just starting. The tax chaps from Inland Revenue sent the Silversword financier a bill for 21.5 million pounds in overdue taxes and he was declared bankrupt soon after. Unfortunately, Mr. RAMSDEN then perpetrated a bankruptcy fraud by hiding assets from bankruptcy court officials, including 77,000 pounds of winnings from a British track and 300,000 pounds he received from a New York trust.
The fallen horseman of Howe Street was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 1998, and on his release he reportedly appeared in a number of Internet companies, including some with betting Web sites. Soon after walking free, with the prison doors clanging shut behing him, Mr. RAMSDEN headed to the open doors of Union Securities in Vancouver, which was happy to open a brokerage account for the fallen financier.
While Mr. RAMSDEN has relocated to Gibraltar, amid an exodus of British bookies and gambling figures to the tax-friendly secrecy haven, the troubles in his former racing empire are far from over.
On Jan. 4, high-profile British horse trainer Rod Simpson, who had been the top trainer in Mr. RAMSDEN's stable for years, was fined 2,500 pounds by the British Jockey Club for a series of racetrack misdemeanours. "What I didn't allow for was the fact that the Jockey Club has these ex-policemen aged 90 to 130 with nothing else to do," the unrepentant racing legend told the press.
According to Alfa, two years ago Mr. Simpson had the misfortune of being evicted by receivers from racing stables owned by another client, David Piper, who had been arrested and charged with drug trafficking offences. One of the horses trained by Mr. Simpson for Mr. Piper was Nipper Reed, named after the Great Train Robbery detective who put the infamous Kray brothers behind bars.
Although Howe Street boosters love to say the riff-raff were chased out years ago, Mr. RAMSDEN is back to playing the markets through Vancouver brokerage Union Securities, which filed a $248,400 (Canadian) suit against its offshore Gibraltar-based client this January. another Silversword alumni has been in regulators' crosshairs in recent years.
While Union's star client in recent years, at least in the bad-boy category, has been notorious American career felon and New York Mafia associate Ed Durante, Mr. RAMSDEN deserves special recognition for his own career achievements.
(In the unrelated Durante case, Vancouver broker Trevor Koenig, who ran Union's White Rock satellite branch specializing in garbage OTC Bulletin Board stocks, has been in custody since his Labour Day, 2001, border arrest, and is now in jail in New York. In a parallel Durante sting to that of Mr. Koenig, controversial Vancouver offshore accountant Michael K. Graye, an associate of Mr. Chambers, was nabbed last October.)
With such a rich penny stock legacy on Howe Street and Bay Street, it is hardly a surprise that so many Canadians, including Mr. Rosenfeld, were targeted and nabbed in Bermuda Short. |
