Chinese Stock Scams Becoming "Epidemic of Fraud" for U.S. Investors

Obscure Chinese Stock Scams Dupe American Investors by the Thousands

Braden Lindstrom had only dabbled in investing when he was encouraged by someone impersonating a financial adviser to buy shares in a small Chinese company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. A few clicks later, he was on his way to being scammed out of $80,000.

Lindstrom, a college professor in Utah, invested in Jayud Global Logistics, a small Chinese shipping company whose price rose for months, then crashed 96%, just after Americans like him were told to buy it. Wall Street veterans say the pattern has been repeated dozens of times in recent years, and feeds on tiny Chinese stocks that are vulnerable to manipulation and easily bought by U.S. investors.

Traders and investigators say it has become an epidemic of fraud, frustrating U.S. regulators who typically can’t get access to evidence in China, even though the companies market their stock to investors in the U.S. The Justice Department is now involved with fighting the fraud, which resembles a pump and dump, declaring it a priority of the Trump administration’s white-collar enforcement program.

Crypto group Tron to go public after US pauses probe into billionaire founder

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s digital asset platform Tron is set to go public in the US, four months after market regulators agreed to pause a fraud investigation into several of his companies.

Tron will go public in a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment in a deal orchestrated by Dominari Securities, a New York-based boutique investment bank with ties to Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The new venture will buy and hold the Tron token, mimicking the tactics of Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, which founder Michael Saylor has turned into a leveraged bitcoin vehicle, one of the people said. Eric Trump is expected to take up a role at the company, which will be called Tron Inc, the person added.

Why Are Cybercriminals Targeting Law Firms With Voice Phishing?

Vishing, or voice phishing, has become an increasingly common tactic for hackers, as defenses against traditional ransomware have strengthened at the same time as the text-to-speech and voice cloning have improved exponentially. […]

“They’re pretending to be the IT department, saying that somebody needs to remote in and then saying, ‘Oh, I gotta run something overnight. Just leave your computer up,’” said Beth Waller, chair of the cybersecurity and data privacy practice at Woods Rogers. “That’s how people are falling prey. And this is particularly troubling because a lot of times the initial connection to the environment is not a known malware software.”

Once the hackers have access to a user’s computer, they can extort money from victims by encrypting data in place, exfiltrate data and demand ransoms to avoid public disclosure, contact clients to apply pressure to firms, and directly contact firm leadership to increase urgency.

Law firms present both an attractive and soft target to criminal groups like SRG, because they possess both large amounts of valuable client data and the means to pay for its recovery. Firms present an attractive target “one, because of the secrets that we keep as lawyers and law firms and clients that we represent,” Waller said.

“Secondly, I think that there is the fact that we are seen as being a place where they can make money … they view law firms as a lucrative target.”

Crypto ‘Perps’: Why Perpetual Futures’ US Debut Is Edging Closer Under Trump

Trading of cryptocurrencies began in online forums and obscure exchanges, where buying and holding tokens was the norm. But making leveraged bets — a common tool in traditional finance that allows investors to take a large position with a small amount of capital — was nearly impossible.

That changed in 2016 when crypto trading platform BitMEX launched perpetual futures: contracts with no expiration that let traders speculate with leverage around the clock. Known as “perps,” these contracts quickly became the dominant instrument to bet on crypto prices.

While crypto platforms and financial exchanges in the US offer spot trading for popular cryptocurrencies, as well as conventional futures and options contracts, and access to exchange-traded funds backed by these digital assets, perps are currently not available in the country since they’re unregulated, high-risk instruments.

But with a more crypto-friendly president in the White House, regulators in America have been softening their stance on digital currencies and perpetual futures could finally get the green light. This would bring deeper institutional integration of crypto into US financial markets.