The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said today it had charged seven people with operating a pump-and-dump stock scam in 2006 and 2007 that purported to provide products and services to fight global warming and Guyana’s climate fight was one of those mentioned in press releases put out by the fraudsters.
According to the South Florida Business Journal, the company was called CO2 Tech Ltd. It was purportedly based in London and traded on the Pink Sheets. The SEC said money was laundered through a Costa Rican asset protection company, Red Sea Management Ltd.
“The company had issued numerous press releases about vague environmental products and services, with project descriptions like `help reduce the vulnerability of Guyana to intense climatic events’ and `perform environmental effects monitoring and analysis and develop environmental solutions’ for a large offshore oil drilling project in Russia”, the South Florida Business Journal reported.
The SEC alleges that the group included stock promoters, traders, and a lawyer who wrote a fraudulent opinion letter.
One of the stock promoters, Robert L. Weidenbaum, it said, was from Coral Gables, where he operated a company called CLX & Associates. The U.S. Department of Justice today announced related criminal charges against some of the people, but not Weidenbaum.
According to the news release, the scam resulted in more than US$7 million in illicit profits from sales of stock in CO2 Tech at artificially inflated prices.
The SEC alleges that, despite boasting of impressive business relationships and anti-global warming technology innovations, CO2 Tech did not have any significant assets or operations. The commission also alleged that CO2 Tech falsely touted business relationships that the company had not formed, including a relationship with the Boeing Co.
