According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the individual behind a fake $750 million bid for Allied Nevada Gold Corp had profited from selling an undisclosed stake in the mining company and is no longer in the country.
In a complaint filed by the regulator in a New York federal court on June 9, SEC said that Luis Chang has purchased Allied Nevada stock along with a company that he controls, Everbright Development Overseas Ltd, while spreading information about the mining company. Then, Everbright sold the shares into a market that has been already influenced by the false information Chang and the company has spread, and profited over $7 million in the process.
Chang, who is a naturalized US citizen, is said to have fled to China.
SEC is reportedly seeking the return of the profits fraudulently obtained by Chang from the alleged scheme, along with unspecified monetary penalties. Bloomberg said US District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan has ordered a temporary freeze on Chang's or Everbright's assets, including those which are held by the latter in a Charles Schwab Corp account that, according to the SEC, was used to carry out the scheme. Moreover, SEC is also eyeing a freeze on several properties in California and Nevada that were said to be Chang's or Everbright's.
The SEC also said in the complaint that Chang has represented himself as an agent of China Gold Stone Mining Development Ltd at least since November last year. the regulator said tha Chang had worked with investment banker and managing partner Christopher Baclawski of CB Capital Partners Inc. The complaint alleged that Chang phone a lawyer at New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP about representing him in a tender offer for the shares of Allied Nevada.
Although Baclawski is not named as a defendant in the case, he said that his firm is still working with a large firm in China behind China Gold Stone that remains interested in Allied Nevada. He also expressed his shock at the SEC allegations against Chang, but clarified that the latter only served as an intermediary and is not affiliated with the lawyer's firm or its Chinese client.
