Directly from the SEC.gov site

SEC Charges Eight Participants in Penny Stock Manipulation Ring

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) announced today that it filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against Pawel P. Dynkowski, Matthew W. Brown, Jacob Canceli, Gerard J. D’Amaro, Joseph Mangiapane Jr., Nathan M. Michaud, Marc J. Riviello and Adam S. Rosengard. The complaint alleges that in 2006 and 2007, Dynkowski, a Polish citizen who resided in the U.S., engaged in market manipulation schemes with at least four separate stocks: GH3 International, Inc., Asia Global Holdings, Inc., Playstar Corp., and Xtreme Motorsports of California, Inc. As alleged in the complaint, Dynkowski’s co-defendants each participated in one or more of these schemes, which together generated more than $6.2 million in illicit profits.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that these fraudulent schemes generally followed the same pattern: Dynkowski and his accomplices agreed to sell large blocks of shares for penny stock companies in exchange for a portion of the proceeds. The companies put these shares in nominee accounts that Dynkowski and his accomplices controlled. The defendants pumped the market price of the stocks using wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading, often timed to coincide with false or touting press releases by the companies, to give the market the false impression that there was real demand for these stocks. After artificially inflating the market price of the stocks, Dynkowski and his accomplices then dumped the shares obtained from the issuers and divided the illicit proceeds.

The SEC’s complaint further alleges that:

* The pump-and-dump scheme involving GH3 International, Inc. stock occurred between October and December 2006. Dynkowski orchestrated this fraud with Matthew W. Brown, who operates a penny stock website called InvestorsHub.com. Brown introduced Dynkowski to a representative of GH3 and to Jacob Canceli, a penny stock promoter who participated in the scheme. Brown acted as a liaison between Dynkowski, Canceli and the issuer. Dynkowski and his associates used wash sales, matched orders, and other manipulative trading, timed to coincide with false, misleading and touting press releases by the company, to inflate the price of GH3 stock. Canceli provided the accounts from which Dynkowski subsequently sold purportedly unrestricted shares received from the issuer. The scheme culminated in mid-December 2006, with Dynkowski dumping 312 million shares of GH3 stock for total illicit proceeds of $747,609.

* Brown planned the Asia Global pump-and-dump scheme with Joseph Mangiapane Jr. and Marc J. Riviello, who were both registered representatives at a small broker-dealer in California. Dynkowski and Nathan M. Michaud, who met through InvestorsHub.com, pumped the price of Asia Global stock using wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading, coordinated with false, misleading, and touting press releases by the company. The scheme occurred in three cycles: August-September 2006, November-December 2006, and January-February 2007. After manipulating the price of stock, Dynkowski, Brown, Mangiapane and Riviello dumped more than 54 million shares that had been improperly registered on SEC Form S-8 and held in nominee accounts. The illicit proceeds from this scheme totaled at least $4,050,529.

* Dynkowski and Gerard J. D’Amaro carried out the Playstar pump-and-dump scheme. The two of them met through InvestorsHub.com. D’Amaro acted as the liaison with the issuer as well as the nominee account holder for the purportedly unrestricted shares received from the company. In this scheme, which occurred during October and November 2006, Dynkowski pumped Playstar’s stock through wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading. Dynkowski and D’Amaro sold 11.5 million shares for total illicit proceeds of $1,180,294.

* Dynkowski and an accomplice carried out the Xtreme Motorsports pump-and-dump scheme. The two of them, who met through InvestorsHub.com, pumped Xtreme Motorsports stock through wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading during January and February 2007. Dynkowski’s friend, Adam S. Rosengard, served as the nominee account holder who facilitated the dump of 13 million purportedly unrestricted shares of Xtreme Motorsports stock. After pumping the stock, Dynkowski sold the shares from Rosengard’s account generating illicit proceeds of $257,646.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that Dynkowski and Brown violated Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”), Sections 10(b) and 13(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), and Rules 10b-5, 13d-1 and 13d-2 thereunder; that Canceli, D’Amaro, Mangiapane, and Riviello violated Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, and Rule 10b-5; that Michaud violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, and Rule 10b-5; and that Rosengard violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act. The complaint seeks against each defendant a permanent injunction against future violations, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, and civil monetary penalties, and, as to certain defendants, orders barring them from participating in penny stock offerings.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware also announced today felony criminal charges against Dynkowski, Brown, Canceli, D’Amaro, Mangiapane, and Riviello.

The SEC thanks the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware; the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations; and the Delaware State Police for their assistance in this matter.

The SEC’s investigation is continuing.

Indictments were also handed down to everyone sued by the SEC except for Nathan Michaud and Adam Rosengard.

I was surprised to see Matthew Brown’s name come up in this penny stock manipulation ring. As some of you know he is the operator of the popular penny stock message board Investors Hub. Most some of the message boards there have become a frickin’ playground for manipulation over the past several years and I would not be surprised to see some more bad come out of that place.

Bill Panetta, who was not sued by the SEC like the others were, was though, indicted on one count of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Panetta allegedly gave false testimony about knowledge of another individual involved.

Bill Panetta operates BreakOutTrading.net and even has his own little home away from home @ his board on investors hub. Go Figure!

If convicted, all face up to 20 years in prison for each count…except Panetta faces a maximum of 5 years.

If these allegations are true, I hope all involved get what they deserve. This is a perfect example of a penny stock manipulation scheme getting undercovered. Unfortunately many manipulation schemes today still go undiscovered and undetected.

I’ve also heard some rumors of another individual mentioned that may very well on his own penny stock site.

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I was on Twitter for a second yesterday and a came across an interesting tweet from Timothy Sykes……

When shorting penny stocks, it’s so key to wait for these afternoon fades and ideally the taking out of the morning lows, remember this!
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An afternoon fade is one of a penny stock trader’s best friends when short selling penny stocks. It is one of my favorite short selling patterns because it’s VERY predictable.

So lets get to the basics: What is an afternoon fade? An afternoon fade is when a penny stock gradually (sometimes sharply) comes down off its highs of the day and keeps making lower lows for the day. Keep in mind we’re only looking for afternoon fades in penny stocks that are hyped, manipulated to 75%-300% gains in 1-10 trading days.

What happens is during the morning hours of trading there’s a ton a volume and volatility in these types of penny stocks because of news, hype, promoting, message board pumping, etc. Then what happens is by the afternoon time everything kind of calms down from the morning spikes and all that craziness and these particular penny stocks start trending gradually downwards because the momentum drains out and volume is lighter from that in the morning. A key to spotting an afternoon fade is when your targeted hyped penny stock begins to make intraday lower-lows OR goes below the morning lows – during the afternoon. Here’s a chart diagram that shows a picture perfect afternoon fade (from yesterday actually).

Afternoon fades are very predictable pattern to short because there usually just isn’t enough volume to turn up a penny stock turning downwards..traders just kind of go with the flow. Because of this its less risky because of the non-volatile factor. For you beginners just getting into or wanting to get into shorting penny stocks, I suggest you try to short these types of patterns first because it’s less risky. Then once you get your feet wet you can began to short this amazing pattern.

Short interest is the total number of shares of a particular penny stock that have been sold short by traders but have not yet been closed out or “covered”.

Short interest is calculated by dividing the number of shorted shares by the number of shares outstanding (all available shares offered), or alternatively you can just go to ShortSqueeze.com and they give the information to you automatically when you input a certain penny stock’s symbol. Short interest is only calculated twice a month in stocks, not everyday, so keep that in mind.

If you go to ShortSqueeze.com you’ll see what’s called “days-to-cover” which means that’s the estimated time it would take to cover all shares that are short in the penny stock.

Here’s The Point: The higher the days-to-cover aka short interest ratio, the more likely they’ll be a short squeeze!

So knowing this, how does it help you? Well, whenever I mention a penny stock is setting up to short, and you DO in fact open up a short position in it…you should check the short interest of that penny stock to see the possibility/magnitude of a short squeeze.

Here’s another point to consider: Say there has been a huge manipulated/hyped run of a penny stock that we all know is a scam company…every pennystocker out there is just waiting to short this thing at the right moment. Then that moment happens but now theres so much shares short (because of it’s popularity) that every trader now is vulnerable to a short squeeze.

If you’ve read this post and still don’t exactly know the whole deal behind a short squeeze, get my FREE eBook, cause I explain everything about the short squeeze.

The lesson here is to always consider the short-biased popularity on a given penny stock because the more shares short the more you’re at risk for a squeeze. Don’t get juiced!