In a complaint filed in Delaware by the United States Securities
and Exchange Commission, InvestorHub.com 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 "liason" 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.