SEC Division of Enforcement

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: (UPDATED 6:25 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The SEC has filed an emergency action in federal court in Charlotte, N.C., that alleges Zeek Rewards is a $600 million Ponzi and pyramid scheme. “The obligations to investors drastically exceed the company’s cash on hand, which is why we need to step in quickly, […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: Peter Madoff, the brother of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, has pleaded guilty in New York to a two-count superseding information charging him with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, tax fraud, mail fraud, ERISA fraud and falsifying records of an investment adviser. The government is seeking a staggering forfeiture order of […]

BULLETIN: In an unprecedented move, the SEC today announced that it had suspended trading in 379 penny stocks, saying the companies were delinquent in filings and ripe for hijacking and scams involving reverse mergers and pump-and-dump schemes. “The trading suspension marks the most companies ever suspended in a single day by the agency as it […]

BULLETIN: The SEC is tackling another bizarre securities-fraud case in which the alleged elements read like fiction. In May 2011, the agency charged Allen E. Weintraub of Aventura, Fla., in a bogus “tender offer” caper in which he fraudulently claimed to have backers to purchase (for purported billions of dollars) Eastman Kodak Co. and AMR […]

BULLETIN: The SEC has gone to federal court in the Central District of California to charge former U.S. Olympian and NFL wide receiver Willie Gault in an alleged stock scheme involving Heart Tronics Inc. Gault, 51, was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team that boycotted the summer games in Moscow. He later played […]

BULLETIN: The SEC has charged Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger and 12 others — including a disbarred attorney — in an alleged penny-stock swindle that gathered $11 million. The civil case is filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada. Ruettiger, 63, of Las Vegas, was the inspiration behind the movie “Rudy,” which depicted his drive to make […]

UPDATED 10:04 A.M. ET (DEC. 8, U.S.A.)  Frank L. Pavlico III — convicted in 2007 of felony conspiracy to conduct financial transactions involving the proceeds of drug trafficking and released in 2008 after serving his 10-month prison term — has been arrested for wire fraud by the FBI in an alleged prime-bank swindle that occurred while […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This information is presented in the form of briefs, with links to external sources. 1.) Doris E. Nelson, arrested/jailed in Spokane, Wash., region, last week after federal raid in April 2010. SEC filed civil charges in September 2011. The allegations against Nelson and multiple companies in Nevada, Utah and Canada are alarming, but […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: A former managing director of the NASDAQ stock exchange has been charged by both the SEC and federal prosecutors in an insider-trading case. Donald L. Johnson, 56, of Ashburn, Va., already has pleaded guilty on the criminal side of things, the Justice Department said. For its part, the SEC said […]

BULLETIN: UPDATED 3:07 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The SEC has gone to federal court in Dallas to halt the operations of what it described as a highly complex fraud and Ponzi scheme involving a purported VOIP/telecommunications firm and more than 40 individuals and companies. A federal judge has frozen the assets of China Voice Holding Corp., […]

A chemist who works for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been charged criminally by federal prosecutors, arrested by federal agents in Maryland, sued by the SEC — and will go to bed tonight knowing his son has been arrested in the same case. Cheng Yi Liang, 56, of Gaithersburg, was accused of abusing […]