Forget about illegal naked short selling and other hedge fund profiteering schemes that may have brought down the world economy.  The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has more important matters occupying its attention.

In a complaint filed in Delaware by the SEC, InvestorsHub.com founder and operator Matthew Brown and seven others were accused of a pump-and-dump scheme in 2006 involving GH3 International, Inc. and Asia Global, in two separate incidents.  Brown is accused of being a "liaison" between the accused in the GH3 incident, where the participants "used wash sales, matched orders, and other manipulative trading, timed to coincide with false, misleading and touting press releases by the company, to inflate the price of GH3 stock."  The group is suspected to have made off with $747,609 from the GH3 trades.

In a separate incident, Brown orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme with broker-dealers in California who "met through InvestorsHub.com, pumped the price of Asia Global stock using wash sales, matched orders and other manipulative trading, coordinated with false, misleading, and touting press releases by the company."

The complaint alleges that "the illicit proceeds from this scheme totaled at least $4,050,529."

InvestorsHub.Com, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ADVFN, which trades on the London Stock Exchange as AFN. InvestorsHub.Com operates both Investors Hub and Silicon Investor, according to its website.  ADVFN, according to its annual report, receives over 10 million dollars in revenues per year.  Matthew Brown is not on the parent company's board of directors or a part of their executive management.  He is listed as the Lead Site Administrator for Investors Hub and has posted 24,285 messages on the board, according to the website.