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Matthias Knab, Opalesque:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged three brothers and three alleged accomplices with orchestrating one of the most bizarre and far-reaching securities fraud schemes in recent years, involving identity theft, fake clinical data, fabricated press releases, intimidation of executives, and classic insider trading.

According to the SEC, the defendants allegedly generated ca. USD 41 million in illicit profits through a series of schemes targeting small biotechnology companies. What sets this case apart is not just the scale, but the extraordinary lengths allegedly taken to manipulate markets.

In one scheme, the brothers are accused of impersonating doctors to gain access to confidential clinical trial information and stealing the identities of metastatic breast cancer patients from online forums. Those identities were then allegedly used to fabricate trial results that were fed into the market, artificially inflating a public company's share price.

In another episode, when a hoped-for acquisition failed to materialize, the SEC alleges the defendants did not step back, but instead escalated. They allegedly pressured company executives and issued a false press release announcing a non-existent partnership, triggering a stock surge that allowed them to exit positions at a profit.

The complaint further describes a multi-year insider trading network, in which one defendant allegedly received confidentia......................

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