After 15 years of investigation and legal proceedings by the Financial Markets Authority, two stock market manipulators finally received fines totaling $830,000.
Michael Raso Cortellazzi and Antonio Savaris will have to pay $580,000 and $250,000, respectively. In January, the Court found them guilty of having “influenced or attempted to influence” the value of a security, “through unfair, abusive or fraudulent practices”.
The two businessmen were part of a vast network with Cortellazzi’s father, Andrea Cortellazzi, who is now deceased. They worked with stock market manipulator Jean-François Amyot, who received a record fine of 11.2 million and three months in prison to be served intermittently in 2017.
According to the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), “the defendants took part in a scheme to manipulate the securities of small capitalization companies listed on the American over-the-counter markets, namely HE-5 Resources Inc., UMining Resources Inc . and Neuro-Biotech Corp”.
“The scheme was based, among other things, on fraudulent issuances of shares of these companies, on the production of false documents and on the design and distribution of press releases containing false and exaggerated information about these companies. »
The stock transactions leading to the charges date back as far as 2007, in Cortellazzi’s case. They took place on the American market over-the-counter.
The network used pump and dump strategies. They consist first of issuing shares of very small companies, then of circulating false or misleading information about companies in order to artificially boost the value of their shares. The fraudsters then liquidate their securities in order to pocket large profits, before other investors discover the deception and lose their stake.
According to the court, Cortellazzi and Savaris participated in each stage of the scheme, for their own benefit and that of other members of the organization.
During the trial, Cortellazzi tried to argue that he was only his father’s “commission agent”, but Judge Josée Bélanger rejected his claims.
Six other people were convicted as part of the Consortium project on this vast network of stock market manipulation.
Jean-François Amyot is by far the one who received the heaviest sentence. La Presse, however, reported in May 2022 that he had only paid $12,000 of the $11.2 million fine he had received, as part of an agreement with the Ministry of Justice.
We also revealed that Amyot had been the subject of a new investigation for stock market manipulation since 2017. It even led to a joint search by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Sûreté du Québec and the AMF at his former home in 2019.
