A group of financial influencers has been charged with pumping stocks via
social media, and then dumping their shares without disclosing that they
were engaging in a pump and dump scheme.
Probably because pump and dump schemes are legal and
investors aren't interested in being part of it or getting played by it.
Now they generated millions of dollars doing this.
And the good news here is that turns out the DOJ does its job time to time.
So does the STC, because both government agencies are pursuing an investigation and
indictments toward these financial influencers.
In an unsealed 44 page indictment filed in the United States District Court for
the Southern district of Texas, a grand jury charged eight
financial influencers in a large scale securities fraud conspiracy
that racked up over $114 million over a little less than two years.
So who are these people?
Here's a fun graphic that has some of their names.
So you've got Edward Constantinescu,
Perry Matlock, you guys get the picture, Gary Deel.
So if you've been watching this content, if you've been taking financial advice
from these individuals, Daniel Knight, Mitchell Hennessey, Tom Cooperman,
you probably should stop taking financial advice from them.
Because not only were they robbing you, they were laughing about robbing
you behind the scenes as they were exchanging communication about how and
when to rob you.
And by the way, real smart criminals here, putting it all in writing on discord,
and completely unaware that the feds had already started monitoring them and
their conversations.
So the indictment actually has quite a bit of information about
the conversations that they had.
So when Knight and Tom Cooperman chatted about their scheme in May of 2021 to pump
up the value of GTT Communications' stock, one of their co-conspirators who went
unnamed in the indictment seemed afraid of getting caught, as they should have been.
The person said, I just wanna do it the right way.
Knight allegedly responded quote, the effing right way?
We're robbing effing idiots of their money.
The conspirators spelled it out pretty cleanly in their discord chats,
just what they were trying to accomplish.
>> So look, to be fair to these guys and we are the fairest.
>> I don't think we need to be fair to them.
>> No, no, I'm going to be.
They probably thought there are no laws left.
I mean, Trump is breaking every law and getting away with it.
Elon Musk on Twitter was, get this kind of crypto, well, I already left, and
then the price went down, but I didn't tell you that part.
It seemed everybody was lying, everybody was cheating, Sam Bankman-Fried and
all these things.
They're probably thinking, there's still laws?
We thought we could just rob people and
that there would be no consequences at all.
And are they that wrong in thinking that?
>> I mean all the incredibly wealthy celebrities and
public figures who are taking out the PPP, loans and all of that stuff.
I mean, there have been so many financial scams by people who
are already rich, already incredibly powerful,
by individuals who of course manipulated the value of crypto openly.
Musk did that all the time on Twitter, just manipulating the price of crypto.
And by the way, there's other forms of manipulation in the financial
sector that doesn't get the negative commentary that it deserves.
Like what do you think CNBC does all day, right?
When they have people coming on to hype up a certain stock?
>> 100%. >> That's to increase the value of
that stock.
>> Right, and then behind the scenes they sell it after it increases, but
they never tell you that part.
And then when the roof caves in and caves in on you and not them, CNBC,
that's their business model, they've been doing that forever.
I mean, then you want to talk about the big banks, how about the library scandal?
These guys have been cheating on a massive scale.
Did any of them get any of the top CEOs of the banks get arrested for that?
Of course not. So
what's the mistake that these guys actually did?
It wasn't ripping people off.
It was number one, there's two rules to it.
Number one, if you rip off rich people, then you are on a lot of trouble.
So that's the Bernie made off mistake.
Sam Bankman-Fried, was ripping people off for years.
That's why he was stunned that it was a problem.
It's just during the later parts of FDX,
some of the biggest banks in the world started investing into it.
And so when they lost money, boom, he got caught and arrested, okay?
So you can't rip off rich people, they'll come for you.
And then the other thing is, you already have to be rich and powerful yourself,
and bribing politicians.
>> Yeah, good point.
>> So Sam Bankman- Fried had that covered, he was bribing the politicians, but
he forgot, you're not supposed to rob the rich.
If he had just stuck to robbing the middle class and the poor,
he would have been totally fine.
>> We would still see the glossy profiles about how,
I look at- >> Genius.
>> He's such a hard worker.
I mean, he's so wealthy,
but he's such a hard worker that he sleeps on a bean bag in the office.
>> I know that's such a thing, that's the mythology that the dirt bags in corporate
media do for the rich, all of- >> That's what
Dennis O'leary lost in his pants over.
I have no doubt, I watched them, shoot- >> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] Sorry,
sorry to the Dennis O'leary's out there
[LAUGH] >> Now,
one more thing that's important about these guys, guys when you see these folks
online telling you, trust me, I know what I'm doing.
Okay, you gotta spend your invest, your money in this direction.
Watch out.
>> Let's go to graphic four, okay?
The second you see this from so called financial influencers, run for the hills.
Just run for the hills, run for the hills, they're gonna scam you.
>> Okay, so first of all, if they know all these amazing things about
the stock market, why don't they just do their own investing?
What the hell do they need you and all of your money and all that stuff?
Why do they need to give you advice?
>> They're just looking to help.
They wanna share the wealth.
>> Okay, look, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I love you, but
if I had secret information that was not illegal, but
I knew I had an excellent hunch that was gonna make it.
Not a hunch, but I was sure that I was gonna make a ton of money from the stock
market, I just make it, I wouldn't go out there and be, hey everybody,
I got a great hunch.
Why don't you all get it on it too, right?
>> You wouldn't even tell me?
>> [LAUGH] I don't know.
We can talk about it afterwards.
But my point, and I'm a good guy, these guys, these dirt bags,
you think they gonna share their secret information with you,
because they care so much about you making money too?
Of course they're coming to rob you.
And the saddest part of all of this is that con men like these guys,
like, Donald Trump, like Alex Jones,
they always target the people that they think are the lowest IQ.
Noticing their messages, they're saying, hey, let's go for
the dumbest people in America.
And almost every time where they go,
they go to the right wing, cuz you're the easy marks.
I hate to tell your brothers and sisters, but when you fall for stuff like this, and
you fall for penis pills and brain pills from Alex Jones, and
that Donald Trump cares about you and not himself?
Well, why don't you just put a thing on your forehead that says Mark, Mark,
Mark come, rob me, come, rob me.
You're the sucker at the table.