A New York-based Guyanese man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in an illegal pump-and-dump stock manipulation scheme.
According to a release from the Minneapolis division of the US Department of Justice, Acting U.S. Attorney Charles J. Kovats made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge David S. Doty sentenced the defendant.
According to court documents, Christopher James Rajkaran, 36, of Queens, New York, and Guyana, participated in a scheme to hijack and assume control of dormant public shell companies.
The court documents said that Rajkaran and his co-defendants used their control over the companies to fraudulently manipulate and pump up the price of the companies’ stock so that they could profit from the sale of stock at inflated prices to unwitting investors.
According to court documents, Rajkaran and his co-defendants conducted the scheme by obtaining hundreds of thousands or even millions of shares of stock in dormant public shell companies that traded over-the-counter at low prices, often for less than a fraction of a penny per share.
“Rajkaran and his co-defendants then assumed control over the shell companies by creating and filing fake resignation letters and board resolutions purporting to announce the resignation of the existing management team and the appointment of one or more conspirators as new officers and directors of the companies. Rajkaran and his co-defendants used their control over the hijacked shell companies to issue fraudulent press releases and filings designed to fraudulently “pump up” the price of the hijacked companies’ stock. Rajkaran and his co-defendants then “dumped” their stock by selling at the fraudulently inflated prices to reap the fraudulent obtained profits”, the release said.
On October 7, 2021, the release said that Rajkaran pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. On October 14, 2021, co-defendant Mark Allen Miller, 44, of Breezy Point, also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Co-defendant Saeid Jaberian, 60, of Hopkins, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud charges, the release added.
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI. The U.S. Attorney’s Office would also like to thank the Securities and Exchange Commission for its assistance on this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph H. Thompson and Miranda E. Dugi are prosecuting the case.