anyone with a stockwatch account?courtesy stockwatch....
SEC bars Rhino's Wiertzema for life
2005-05-10 21:18 ET - Street Wire
by Stockwatch Business Reporter
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, North America's top penny stock regulator, has barred another Canadian from penny stocks. The SEC has banned convicted Canadian securities violator Mark Wiertzema, one of many regulatory targets arising from Operation Bermuda Short, from penny stocks for life.
Mr. Wiertzema's criminal trial
Mr. Wiertzema, a 54-year-old native of Toronto, Ont., was nabbed in Operation Bermuda Short, the massive sting operation in which the FBI, assisted by the RCMP, arrested 58 penny stock players in Canada and the United States.
In his ensuing criminal trial Mr. Wiertzema was convicted of securities fraud for agreeing to a kickback scheme involving an offshore hedge fund and a supposedly crooked fund manager. The problem for Mr. Wiertzema was the crooked fund manager was an undercover FBI agent, and the fund did not exist.
The plan Mr. Wiertzema and three his unlucky co-conspirators agreed to went like this: Mr. Wiertzema's company, Ontario-based Rhino Ecosystems Inc., would issue 650,000 shares in bogus consulting agreements. The offshore fund would then buy these shares for $8.6-million, but the money would be used almost entirely for kickbacks. The biggest kickback, $6-million, was to go to the purported crooked agent himself. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)
Mr. Wiertzema, who served as Rhino's chief financial officer, agreed to accept a $100,000 kickback. His three co-accused, jailed securities violator Melvin Levine, Rhino president Charles Cini and Rhino vice-president Gordon Novak, negotiated bigger pieces of the pie for themselves. They were each in line for $500,000.
The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
If you would like to give the Stockwatch system a try, click here for a free 30 day trial subscription.
....maybe post the rest of the article.
btw, if you ever catch yourself endlessly gutchecking ....its good to be paranoid when dirtying yourself in this business.