An international group of 13 stock promoters were charged Monday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with running a hacking scheme that allegedly took over investors’ brokerage accounts and made the accounts into zombielike instruments of penny stock fraud.
The defendants used dozens of hijacked accounts to bid up shares of a cannabis stock and a gaming stock; then they forced the commandeered accounts to purchase shares controlled by the group, said the civil action filed by the SEC in an Atlanta federal district court.
The alleged scheme reaped more than a $1 million in proceeds between 2015 and 2018, said the SEC, by manipulating the microcap stocks Lotus Bio-Tech (ticker: LBTD) and Good Gaming (GMER). Most of the losses ultimately came out of the pockets of brokerage firms, who reimbursed the owners of the hijacked accounts, according to the complaint.
Coordinating the hacking attacks was a 45-year old stock promoter from Alberta, Canada, named Rahim Mohamed, according to Monday’s complaint. Securities filings show that Mohamed’s previous public ventures claimed involvement in cryptocurrency mining. “Mr. Mohamed’s frequent business travel has accrued him extensive exposure to cross-cultural dynamics and international business practices in Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East, Caribbean and North America,” said one company biography.
Secretly controlling most shares in Good Gaming, says the SEC, was 68-year old Glenn B. Laken—a onetime Chicago hedge fund manager who served five years in prison after his fraud conviction in a 2000 prosecution known at the time as the “Mob on Wall Street” case.
Mohamed didn’t respond to emailed queries fromBarron’s, while Laken and his attorney declined to comment. As of Tuesday, no attorneys had entered appearances for the defendants, in the court docket.
The new civil fraud case should alert investors to take care of their online accounts, warned agency officials. “This case illustrates the critical importance of cybersecurity and of our ongoing efforts to protect retail investors from cyber fraud,” said the SEC’s enforcement chief, Gurbir Grewal. “Investors should also take precautions, including choosing strong passwords, using different passwords for different accounts, and using two-factor authentication when available.”
According to the charges, an organizer of both stock schemes was Richard C.S. Tang, a 44-year old British Columbia executive in a number of tiny U.S. public companies. Tang and his relatives secretly controlled shares of aspiring cannabis vendor Lotus Bio-Tech from accounts in offshore spots like Britain, Switzerland, Belize and the Bahamas.
Tang didn’t respond to queries left by Barron’s on his voicemail, or to emails.
Tang’s relatives were the main sellers when the stock abruptly tripled in price one day in September 2017, as the day’s trading volume jumped to 11.5 million shares, from just 400 the day before, says the complaint. The buying came from two dozen retail accounts at four U.S. brokerage firms that had been hacked by associates of Mohamed, said the SEC. The brokerage firms reimbursed their clients for the resulting losses.
Shares of the online gaming stock Good Gaming fell under the control of Laken in 2016 and 2017, says the SEC complaint. Laken had been convicted of wire fraud in 2003 for agreeing to let his commodities hedge fund be used to skim a union pension fund, for the benefit of Frank Persico, a Colombo crime family associate who pleaded guilty to racketeering in the case. After serving his sentence, Laken returned to the stock market as chairman of a small public company called CMG Holdings Group (CMGO).
Monday’s complaint says that Laken conspired with Richard Tang and Rahim Mohamed to sell Laken’s gaming shares into the January 2018 buying of accounts commandeered by Mohamed’s hackers. Good Gaming’s trading volume jumped 3,900% on the day of the hack, says the SEC.
The next day, according to emails cited in the complaint, Tang and Mohamed bickered over the spoils.
Although the proceeds from charged scheme were just $1.3 million, the defendants have been active in many small stocks, according to SEC records. The agency’s investigation was global. Its announcement credits help from regulators in Canada, Australia, the Caymans, Dubai, France, Hong Kong, Mauritius, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Switzerland, and the U.K.