https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/leader-multiple-pump-and-dump-securities-fraud-schemes-sentenced-30-months-prison

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that EARL INGARFIELD was sentenced to 30 months in prison for orchestrating multiple “pump and dump” stock fraud schemes designed to target retail investors and manipulate trading in penny stock shares, including a scheme to manipulate the shares of Suburban Minerals Corporation (“SUBB”) from which INGARFIELD made more than $1.4 million.  INGARFIELD previously pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who imposed today’s sentence.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Earl Ingarfield engaged in a classic pump and dump scheme that victimized innocent investors and undermined the integrity of our public markets.  Those who defraud investors by spreading false and misleading information for their own monetary gain will face stiff punishment for their crimes.”

According to the Indictment, public filings, and statements made in court:

From at least 2013 through March 2014, EARL INGARFIELD was the leader of multiple schemes to manipulate the stock of penny stocks, including the price of SUBB, a public company traded on the over-the-counter (“OTC”) market.  In or about 2013, INGARFIELD obtained control of SUBB, installing management at the company that acted at his direction and financing SUBB’s operations.  INGARFIELD also obtained convertible promissory notes issued by SUBB, which he then converted into tens of millions of SUBB shares that were nominally held by offshore shell entities.  INGARFIELD used these shell entities to conceal his involvement and the fact that he owned and controlled the vast majority of the shares of SUBB.

In early 2014, at INGARFIELD’s direction, SUBB announced that it was purportedly acquiring a producing African diamond mine worth $5 billion.  But in reality, no such mine existed.  Between January 2014 and March 2014, SUBB issued a series of press releases making false representations regarding that purported mine acquisition and SUBB’s operations.  During the same time period, INGARFIELD orchestrated a marketing campaign through which promotional materials echoing the same false claims were distributed to the investing public by email.  The false and misleading press releases and email marketing campaign caused SUBB’s share price and trading volume to become artificially inflated.

While SUBB’s price was artificially inflated, INGARFIELD profited by selling millions of his secretly amassed shares, all at the expense of the investing public.  Between January and March 2014, he made more than $1.4 million from the sale of SUBB shares.

On March 7, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading in SUBB, after which the share price dropped precipitously and never recovered.

In addition to his prison term, EARL INGARFIELD, 64, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $1,804,738 and forfeiture of $1,418,473.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of Homeland Security Investigation’s El Dorado Task Force.

The matter is being handled by the Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Deininger, Shiva Logarajah, and Tara La Morte are in charge of the prosecution.