Courtney Wasser, a member of the British Columbia Hells Angels, and former Canadian Football League player David Sidou are among 16 people accused of committing a massive international fraud that lasted more than a decade and snatched investors from an alleged $ 194. million
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York say defendants, nearly half of whom are Canadians, have manipulated the stock prices of dozens of U.S. securities companies for about 15 years.
U.S. officials say the defendants have amassed control positions in useless front companies and used stockbrokers to raise stocks to artificially high levels. Taking advantage of the huge peaks, the defendants collected millions at once, pulling on top. After the fake promotions ended, the share prices of the companies collapsed, leaving ordinary investors to hold useless shares. The defendants worked in the shadows, US officials said, using pseudonyms, communicating using encrypted messages and hiding money in offshore accounts.
The SEC said it was one of the “most sophisticated micro-cap fraud schemes” it has ever seen.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Mr. Vassor, a resident of Burnaby, British Columbia, and a member of Hells Angels, was among those charged in the Southern District. Mr. Vassor, known as the Arctic Shark, was charged along with another Canadian, Curtis Lehner.
Mr Lehner, known as Santa Claus, and Mr Vassor are alleged to have committed fraud by gaining control of shares in at least eight valuable shares between 2016 and 2018 and watching misleading campaigns to promote shares. The couple collected tens of millions in illegally earned profits, the US prosecutor’s office announced.
Mr Vassor and Mr Lehner were not available for comment.
Most of the manipulated companies were based in Nevada and traded on New York’s OTC Markets, a well-known securities trading platform. However, one of the counterfeit companies is based in Vancouver and traded on the TSX Venture Exchange, as well as the OTC market. While several provincial Canadian securities regulators and law enforcement agencies assisted in the investigation, no Canadian authorities filed charges.
The SEC has also filed civil charges against former footballer Mr Sidou and another Canadian indictee, Ronald Jacob Bauer. It is alleged that the men carried out pumps and discharges related to North American Oil and Gas Corp. and American Helium Inc., and made illicit profits of $ 16.6 million.
Mr. Sidou, 62, once played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and BC Lions. In 2020, Mr. Sidou was involved in the US college admission scandal and was sentenced to three months in a U.S. prison after admitting to paying someone to take a SAT for two of his two sons.
Mr Sidou “used offshore omnibus vehicles and front companies to cover up the fact that he was a beneficiary of the sale of shares and failed to disclose his real ownership and trade, as well as to register his sales of shares as required by law, “said the SEC.
Mr Sidou has also been actively involved in “substantially misleading” promotion campaigns behind the pump and landfills, the SEC said.
“The materials urged readers to buy the shares and do so quickly to take advantage of the supposedly realistic prospects for short-term, dramatic gains,” the regulator said.
Mr G. Weinberg, Mr Sidou’s US lawyer, told The Globe and Mail that his client denied the allegations made by the SEC.
Mr. Bauer could not be found.
A series of investigations by the Globe and Mail in 2020 and 2021 found that Canada has poor data on police pump fraud and dumping compared to the United States, while Canadians play a huge role in similar schemes in the United States. The fragmented nature of regulation in Canada, whereby 13 provincial and territorial regulators control the market, unlike only one in the United States, the SEC, is cited as the main reason why the country has failed.
Poor police surveillance by junior stock exchanges in Canada, compared to their counterparts in the United States, is also a factor, as is the slow response time of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, Canada’s regulator, which is the first line of defense against stock exchanges. fraud.
Three other Canadians accused by US authorities of fraud by manipulating shares are Domenico Calabrigo, known as Raider; Julius Churgo; and Anthony Korculanic, known as Viper.
None of the defendants was available for comment by The Globe.
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