In this episode we examine pump and dump schemes in which thinly traded penny stocks are held by unscrupulous broker-dealers through nominees who push the stock on unsophisticated investors, drive up the share prices and then sell their shares at inflated prices causing the stock value to drop significantly. The term pump and dump is not widely known outside of securities enforcement but the names of the practitioners are more familiar. Stratton Oakmont’s Jordan Belfort (of Wolf of Wall Street fame), Benjamin Conde, Power Traders Press, Rooney Pace, A.R. Baron, and the granddaddy of them all, Bob Brennan of First Jersey Securities, introduced the world to stock boiler rooms which have continued to be a blight on the securities industry. My guest today, Joel Cohen, is a litigation partner at Gibson Dunn and former Wolf of Wall Street prosecutor who Forbes magazine nicknamed the “Wolf Hound of Wall Street” for his successful prosecution of Jordan Belfort.
Join us each week as we take a deep dive into the various forms of fraud across the world and discuss crime families, penny stock boiler rooms, international money launderers, narco-traffickers, oligarchs, dictators, warlords, kleptocrats and more.
Scott Moritz is a leading authority on white-collar crime, anti-corruption, and in the evaluation, design, remediation, implementation, and administration of corporate compliance programs, codes of conduct. He is also considered an authority in the establishment, training, and oversight of the investigative protocols carried out by financial intelligence, corporate security, and internal audit units.
