SEC's New Cross-Border Task Force is "First Big Enforcement Signal from Chairman Paul Atkins"

SEC Announces Formation of Cross-Border Task Force to Combat Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the formation of a task force that will strengthen and enhance the Division of Enforcement’s efforts to identify and combat cross-border fraud harming U.S. investors.

The Cross-Border Task Force will focus initially on investigating potential U.S. federal securities law violations related to foreign-based companies, including potential market manipulation, such as “pump-and-dump” and “ramp-and-dump” schemes. The task force also will focus enforcement efforts on gatekeepers, particularly auditors and underwriters, which help these companies access the U.S. capital markets. In addition, it will examine potential securities law violations related to companies from foreign jurisdictions, such as China, where governmental control and other factors pose unique investor risks.

SEC Charges Connecticut Resident with Insider Trading in Multiple Securities

On September 5, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed settled insider trading charges against Connecticut resident Ryan Squillante, who allegedly used confidential information that he obtained in the course of his employment at an investment firm to trade in the securities of at least ten different publicly-traded companies, earning approximately $216,965 in illegal trading profits.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Squillante, who worked as Head of Equity Trading at an investment firm from May 2021 through December 2023, often obtained material nonpublic information, including information concerning potential secondary offerings of securities by publicly-traded companies, as part of his employment. In the instances in which Squillante received such material nonpublic information about a company, the complaint alleges he knew and understood he was not permitted to trade in that company’s stock until either the information was disclosed to the public or the information otherwise became stale, such as by the proposed offering being withdrawn by the company. As alleged, Squillante nonetheless traded based on material nonpublic information in his personal brokerage accounts on at least eleven occasions. According to the complaint, Squillante sold short the stock of the companies about which he had obtained material nonpublic information, essentially predicting that the company’s stock would decrease in value because he had information that would negatively impact the stock price.

SEC Settles with Las Vegas Residents and their Company in a Multimillion Dollar Investment Fraud Scheme

On September 4, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Las Vegas residents Calvin Guess and Marcus Ligon, along with their now defunct investing entity, 5 Fruits Enterprises LLC, with a scheme to defraud investors through false claims about 5 Fruits’ use of automated “bots” in trading securities.

According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, from 2021 through 2023, Guess, Ligon, and 5 Fruits raised over $4.7 million from more than 140 investors by claiming that they would profitably invest their money using automated trading bots to execute options trading algorithms. As alleged in the SEC’s complaint, Guess and Ligon promised incredible returns and directed the creation and distribution of fake account statements to make it appear the supposedly invested funds were growing. In reality, the SEC’s complaint alleges, Guess and Ligon misappropriated most of the money to pay their personal expenses and used about $1 million of investor funds to make Ponzi-like payments to other investors.

NASDAQ Seeks Nod From U.S. SEC to Tokenize Stocks

NASDAQ, the U.S. exchange where the tech sector’s biggest names list their stocks, is seeking to put stocks on the blockchain, asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to bless its effort even as others in the securities world are sprinting toward the same tokenization goal.

If the SEC filing is approved, the exchange would let customers choose either the traditional route for trading equities or to do so on-chain with tokenized stocks — an option that would be treated with the same priority as the legacy method.

“The Exchange believes the markets can use tokenization while continuing to provide the benefits and protections of the national market system,” NASDAQ contended in its filing, suggesting that the tokenized assets should be traded “in regulated markets, namely national securities exchanges, alternative trading systems, and at [Financial Industry Regulatory Authority] regulated broker-dealers.”