The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged eight social media influencers with securities fraud, saying Wednesday they were part of a $100 million scheme to use social media platforms Twitter and Discord to manipulate the price of certain stocks.
Though the influencers are not household names, they had accrued more than two million followers across various social media platforms, where they routinely posted photos of their wealth including of exotic sports cars, according to an SEC complaint filed Tuesday.
Discord is a private chatroom and messaging platform that is popular with gaming influencers and, more recently, financial influencers. According to the regulatory agency, seven of the defendants promoted stocks to their hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers and in stock trading rooms on Discord since at least January 2020.
After purchasing the stocks and encouraging their followers to do the same, the defendants “regularly sold their shares without ever having disclosed their plans to dump the securities while they were promoting them,” the SEC said in a news release.
The alleged form of fraud is commonly referred to as a “pump and dump” scheme, a phrase which was used in the grand jury indictment filed Dec. 7.
According to the SEC, the scheme occurred in three phases: The group would identify a stock and organize purchases at a lower price prior to the alleged manipulation. They would then promote the stock to their followers and inflate the share price, announcing price targets and teasing upcoming news about the company. They would then sell their shares into the demand generated by their hyping, creating a profit. To cover up their scheme, they would delete old tweets and Discord chats, then lie to their followers about why particular stock picks were followed by price declines, thus obscuring their roles in having generated losses for their followers.
“None of the Primary Defendants disclosed that they were either planning to sell, or were actively selling, a Selected Stock while recommending that their followers buy it,” the SEC’s complaint states. “Nor did any of the Primary Defendants disclose that they were coordinating with each other to manipulate the price and volume of trading in the stocks they were promoting.”
The influencers charged include “PJ Matlock,” whose real name is Perry Matlock. On Wednesday, he had deactivated his Twitter account with more than 340,000 followers. One defendant, Daniel Knight who goes by the online handle “Dip Deity,” was charged with “aiding and abetting the alleged scheme” after co-hosting a podcast that promoted the other defendants.
Other defendants include Edward Constantin, who went by the online handle “Zack Morris.” He has more than half a million Twitter followers.
The eight individuals are also facing federal criminal fraud charges.
“Today’s action exposes the true motivation of these alleged fraudsters and serves as another warning that investors should be wary of unsolicited advice they encounter online,” Joseph Sansone, chief of the SEC enforcement division’s market abuse unit, said in the news release.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.