SEC Obtains Emergency Asset Freeze, Charges Ring of Microcap Stock Manipulators Targeting Retail Investors

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has obtained an asset freeze and other emergency relief to halt a series of microcap market manipulation schemes that defrauded retail investors. According to the SEC’s complaint, from 2013 to 2019, the defendants engaged in various schemes to manipulate microcap stocks and defraud retail investors, obtaining a total of over $6 million in illicit profits. First, as alleged in the complaint, from at least 2013 to 2017, defendants Ongkaruck Sripetch, Amanda Flores, and Brehnen Knight with assistance on certain occasions from attorney Ashmit Patel orchestrated numerous fraudulent “scalping” schemes. According to the complaint, they purchased stock in over-the-counter issuers through various entities that they controlled, funded promotional campaigns recommending that investors buy those stocks, and then sold the stocks when their price and trading volume were inflated by those same unlawful promotional campaigns.