One of the four men nabbed in September of 2008 in a sting by US federal agents for trying to bribe stockbrokers to buy shares in Guyana Gold Corp., a US over-the-counter company, has been sentenced to one year in prison, according to the Latin America Herald Tribune.
According to the report John Zanic was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for participating in a scheme to provide secret bribes to a stockbroker in order to induce the broker to purchase a stock on behalf of his clients. The sentence was imposed in Manhattan federal court by United States District Judge Barbara S. Jones.
Zanic, a stockbroker, was arrested on September 16, 2008, in Las Vegas while promoters Glenn Grossman and Lawrence Steven Cohen of New York, and David Schmidt were also named in the action filed against Zanic. They were caught by an undercover agent who pretended to represent a group of brokers with trading discretion over the accounts of wealthy clients. It is not clear if the other accused persons have been sentenced or are on trial.
Zanic, 50, of Las Vegas, Nevada, had pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court before Judge Jones to one count of participating in a conspiracy to commit securities fraud and commercial bribery. In addition to his prison term, Judge Jones sentenced Zanic to two years’ supervised release, ordered him to forfeit US$20,000, and imposed a US$5,000 fine.
The charges against Zanic are the result of a wide-ranging FBI undercover investigation of related stockbroker bribery schemes involving US-based, Canadian-based, and Costa Rican-based stock promoters and stockholders.
According to the news report public filings and proceedings indicated that from March 2008 through September 2008, Zanic, and others, schemed to defraud investors in Guyana Gold Corporation (“Guyana Gold”) by paying secret bribes to an undercover FBI agent posing as a middleman who would cause various stockbrokers to have their respective retail brokerage customers purchase Guyana Gold common stock.
As part of the sting operation, the undercover agent agreed to recruit stockbrokers who were prepared to buy Guyana Gold common stock from Zanic and his coconspirators and sell the stock to the brokerage firm’s retail customers. In exchange, the stockbrokers and undercover agent posing as the middle man were to receive secret, cash payments for their roles in the deal respectively totaling approximately 23 and 7% of the value of the stock sold to customers.
From May through August 2008, Zanic and his co-conspirators paid the undercover agent and the purported “stockbrokers” whom the agent had purportedly recruited, bribes totaling approximately US$21,800.
The bribes represented 30% of the nearly US$75,000 worth of Guyana Gold stock the recruited “stockbrokers” had purchased in trades.
Additionally, on September 3, 2008, Zanic wired US$100,000 to the undercover agent. This payment constituted a cash bribe to induce the undercover agent to cause stockbrokers working with him to breach their fiduciary duty to their customers by purchasing US$300,000 worth of Guyana Gold common stock shares in exchange for additional undisclosed compensation.
In 2008 the Vancouver Sun had reported that the Guyana Gold Corp. is based in Las Vegas and at the time ostensibly exploring for gold in Guyana. Its shares were listed on the “pink sheets,” an unregulated computerized trading forum in the United States. Since May, when the undercover agent bought shares at 63 cents each, the stock has slumped to two cents. Until recently, The Sun had said, the company was controlled by controversial Vancouver promoter Louis Dion and operated under various names, including World Bingo League Co., World Entertainment Corp., and World Mobile Network Corp. In January of 2008, the company shifted into the exploration business and changed its name to Guyana Gold. The company’s president and principal shareholder at the time was listed as Eduard Aronov.
