The FBI alleges a ring of high-tech stock scammers steals U.S. brokerage accounts and uses the money to buy and dump penny stocks for a huge profit.

The agency is trying to find Aleksey Kamardin, a 21-year-old U.S. citizen it believes has fled to Russia, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint alleging Kamardin, as part of an Eastern European ring, defrauded legitimate investors of $82,960 by hacking into their accounts, stealing their identities and using their money to buy "pump and dump" stocks.

The term describes a form of financial fraud that involves artificially inflating a security's price through promotional hype, creating artificial demand, then selling, or dumping, it at a highly inflated price.

The practice is illegal under U.S. securities law.

The FBI says the alleged fraud involved stealing at least 27 accounts from brokers E-Trade Securities, Scottrade, TD Ameritrade, J.P. Morgan Chase and Charles Schwab.

All the account holders have been reimbursed by the brokers, who are stepping up security and identity-authentication measures, SEC officials said. // Copyright 2007 by United Press International


Publication date: 26 January 2007   

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