In an 8K filing Tuesday morning, see here, Chinese reverse-merger wonder China Agritech (CAGC), the favourite stock of apologist Jesse Glickenhaus, announced the departure of its Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ming Fang Zhu. This follows the embarrassing departure of Carlyle Group’s Anne Wang Zheng after the shares were halted in March.
What is truly odd is that both corporate director extraordinaire Gene Michael Bennett and top notch CFO, the Triad-linked Gareth, both remain firmly entrenched at CAGC.
In 2006 the SEC caught up with a prototypical Chinese reverse merger company, China Energy Savings (CESV). Turns out that the CESV principals and our own crazy Gareth have lots in common, through their hijinks at Hong Kong listed Prosper eVision. Readers who wish to catch up on Gareth‘s past dealings at Triad-linked Prosper eVision should read here, here, and here. By doing a simple search on the excellent Webb-Site.com, one can find the following:
CESV‘s COO Dennis Yu Won Kong was an Executive Director of Prosper eVision, Ltd.
One-time CESV CEO and Director Lee Kam Man was also an Executive Director at Prosper.
Ms. Sim Lai Fu aka Stella Sim, yet another Director at CESV, worked at Prosper, and with Gareth once again at scam China Cable (CCCI).
Attorneys at the SEC, including Patrick Feeney, have filed many cases against CESV, the principals, promoters, and even the auditor who signed off on the dirty books. Here is a sampling, from an SEC press release, available here:
- On December 4, 2006, the Commission filed a fraud complaint against China Energy, Chiu Wing Chiu, who was the undisclosed control person of China Energy, and several of Chiu’s associates. SEC v. China Energy 06-CV-6402 (EDNY). (Press Release 2006-200; Lit. Rel. 19933; Complaint) The Commission also obtained an emergency order freezing $3.9 million in assets held in four U.S. brokerage accounts by nominees of Chiu Wing Chiu.
- On December 6, 2006, the Commission issued an order revoking China Energy’s stock registration statements (Admin. Proc. 34-54881). The Commission had previously issued orders suspending trading in China Energy securities on May 19, 2006 (34-53839) and September 26, 2006 (34-54503A).
- On April 27, 2009, the Commission obtained final judgments in SEC v. China Energy against Chiu, Lai Fun “Stella” Sim, Jun Tang Zhao, Sun Li, and New Solomon Consultants, finding them liable for fraud, and ordering them to pay over $34 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. The court also imposed officer-and-director bars against Chiu, Sim, Zhao, and Li.
- On July 31, 2009, the Commission obtained final judgments SEC v. China Energy against the relief defendant nominees of Chiu, ordering that the $3.9 million held in the relief defendants’ U.S. brokerage accounts be turned over to the Court as proceeds of the fraud.
- The Commission filed fraud charges against Jason Genet on September 30, 2009. (See Lit. Rel. 21232; Complaint)
The CESV affair was also the keystone in the SEC‘s action against one of the favourite auditors of Chinese garbage, Moore Stephens Wurth Frazer & Torbet LLP, read it here. Do things really look any brighter for CAGC and it‘s own Prosper eVision refugee?