Surrey Pump and Dump scam goes International

The Vancouver Province reported that a father and son from Surrey are among a group of people charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an international “pump and dump” scheme in which they allegedly fraudulently inflated stock prices before selling them for millions in profits. Charged are John Kirk and Benjamin Kirk of Surrey and Canadian stock promoters Dylan Boyle and James Hinton, along with two San Diego lawyers, a broker-dealer based in the Bahamas and others, according to an SEC news release.

The U.S. lawyers allegedly helped the Kirks hide their involvement with the company and provided misleading legal opinions. And Gibraltar Global Securities in the Bahamas allegedly allowed Benjamin Kirk to secretly sell shares of the companies he was promoting by hiding the fact that he was an owner by providing false affidavits.

“The SEC complaint seeks, among other things, a final judgment ordering the defendants to return their allegedly ill-gotten gains, with interest, and to bar [those charged] from participating in future penny stock offerings,” it said.

In the summer of 2011, the Alberta Securities Commission filed charges in provincial court against the Kirks for the same “pump and dump” scam. That’s the problem. Remember the VSE? The Vancouver stock Exchange was full of fake pump and dump stocks. That’s why it no longer exists and merged with the TSE. This ongoing problem still needs to be addressed because it doesn’t just effect Vancouver, it effects everyone. Fraud was the cause of the Greek financial crisis.

Former Vancouver geologist pleads guilty to massive assay fraud

Former Vancouver geologist and mining executive John Gregory Paterson, who created and distributed hundreds of bogus assay results to boost the share price of Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Southwestern Resources Corp., has pleaded guilty to four of nine counts of fraud.