RE:Where s the SEC on DJTYou can bet they are watching... but..... will depend on who wins the election if any charges are laid.
I see these SEC NR every week.... Is DJT similare to this one?.... SEC knows but too scard to do anything right now....JMHO
SEC fines Left associate Choi $1.8-million (U.S.)
2024-10-22 18:16 ET - Street Wire
by Mike Caswell
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has won a $1.8-million settlement against Ryan Choi, a Beverly Hills resident charged as part of the case against activist short-seller Andrew Left. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The SEC claims that Mr. Choi traded around social media posts made by Mr. Left's publication, buying options before the posts went out. In one case, he generated $567,640 in profits in just over an hour, the SEC says.
The penalty for Mr. Choi comes with the SEC and federal prosecutors still pursuing Mr. Left, who is accused of generating $20-million trading multiple stocks listed in Canada and the United States. According to the government, he used his publication to take advantage of investors who followed his recommendations. Mr. Left denies any wrongdoing, and pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.
Mr. Choi's penalty, which the SEC disclosed on Tuesday, Oct. 22, includes disgorgement of $1.6-million in gains, plus interest, and a $115,231 fine. The sanctions represent a negotiated settlement, in which Mr. Choi did not admit to any wrongdoing. Mr. Choi only faced the SEC's civil charges, and not the more serious criminal allegations against Mr. Left.
The case against Mr. Choi, as set out in a civil complaint that the SEC released on Tuesday, arises in part from trades he made in Vuzix Corp., a company that develops smart glasses and augmented reality technologies. According to the SEC, Citron published a message on Twitter on Dec. 18, 2020, that gave the impression the stock was worth buying: "Getting emails about shorting $VUZI. NO WAY we would short this flyer. Small market cap with story that is tied to 5G, $AMZN and $PLUG and Covid."
In the hour before the message went out, Mr. Choi bought Vuzix call options (a bet that the price of a stock will rise), the complaint states. The stock went up immediately after the message, and Mr. Choi exited his position within minutes, generating a $567,640 profit, the SEC claims.
According to the SEC, Mr. Choi carried out a similar scheme with another stock, XL Fleet Corp., five days later. Based on little or no research, Citron sent a message that said the stock could go to $60, the complaint states. (It was at $24.93 at the time.) The SEC says that Mr. Choi sold a position he had bought just before the message went out, generating a profit of $1,079,577 in 2-1/2 hours.
The penalties against Mr. Choi come about three months after the SEC and federal prosecutors filed cases against Mr. Left. In a complaint filed on July 26, 2024, the SEC said that Mr. Left offered investment advice through Citron that was "often larded with hyped rhetoric" that urged readers to sell. The problem, as set out in the complaint, was that Mr. Left's aim was to cause price changes that he could profit from.
One of the examples cited by the SEC involved Cronos Group Inc., a cannabis promotion on the TSX Venture Exchange in 2018. According to the SEC, Mr. Left told an associate "we can DESTROY CRON" and through a "cron short we could get 2 bucks," meaning he believed he would make $2 per share from trading the stock. Mr. Left then sent out a tweet about Cronos that read: "Everything that is contaminated about the Cannabis space. ALL HYPE with possible securities fraud." The SEC said that Mr. Left used the subsequent drop in the company's price to generate profits of $500,000.
For his part, Mr. Left denied any wrongdoing, and said that the SEC relied on "misleading half-truths" in charging him. He claimed that the SEC omitted the disclaimers that accompanied his recommendations. Among other things, the disclaimers advised readers that he "may be long, short, or neutral," regardless of what he said in his recommendations.
The SEC is seeking appropriate fines, disgorgement of gains and a penny stock ban. The criminal charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years. Mr. Left, who lived in Beverly Hills during the scheme, now lives in Boca Raton, Fla. He is free on a $4-million appearance bond.
© 2024 Canjex Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.