A Freeport resident has been charged by US regulators with perpetrating a securities fraud that increased two companies’ stock prices by 600 per cent and 300 per cent respectively.
The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), in a lawsuit filed in the north Georgia district court last week, alleged that Anthony K. Welch had taken control of two small, microcap stocks and then issued a series of “false and misleading press releases” designed to pump up their share prices.
The lawsuit describes Mr Welch as being “now based offshore, most recently in Freeport, the Bahamas”. Several Tribune Business contacts in Grand Bahama confirmed that they knew who Mr Welch was, and that he is still living on the island.
The SEC is seeking a “permanent injunction” against Mr Welch to bar him from participating in the securities industry on the grounds of his alleged fraud.
Detailing how the scheme worked, the US capital markets regulator alleged that he took over two microcap stocks, eHydrogen and ChromoCure, both of which are now “essentially defunct entities with no assets and little to no actual business operations”.
