ZNext Mining Corp., for a “pump and dump” stock manipulation scheme.
A con artist buys a con artist’s company
A serial fraudster with an aristocratic name used Winick company for her own ‘pump and dump’ stock racket.
Con artist Sandy Winick spun out 59 empty companies so he could use them to create a trading market and make money during the last decade. One of them was Pearl Asian Mining Industries.
And in 2005, Pearlasia Gamboa, alias “Princess Bae Catiguman,” bought the company from Winick so she could sprinkle some personal marketing magic on the firm and turn it into gold for herself.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later charged that Gamboa used the company, which changed its name to ZNext Mining Corp., for a “pump and dump” stock manipulation scheme. She orchestrated the sale of 1.9 billion shares and issued a series of news releases touting mining activity in the Philippines and a cost-saving ore refining system, according to the SEC.
The stock climbed and Gamboa collected more than $1 million in three years before the share price fizzled.
A district court judge ordered a default judgment totalling $1.8 million and a lifetime trading ban against her in 2010 as a result of the case. She never showed up in court or paid the penalties.
A U.S. court later permanently barred her from selling penny stocks.
ZNext has also popped up in a much bigger scheme as part of a U.S. crackdown of international investment fraud.
U.S. investigators have described Gamboa as a serial fraudster after other brushes with the law.
Gamboa, who is in her early 60s, has portrayed herself as an investor and president of the Dominion of Melchizedek, a tiny island in the South Pacific, according to one San Francisco magazine.
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The stock climbed and Gamboa collected more than $1 million in three years before the share price fizzled.
A district court judge ordered a default judgment totalling $1.8 million and a lifetime trading ban against her in 2010 as a result of the case. She never showed up in court or paid the penalties.
A U.S. court later permanently barred her from selling penny stocks.
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