ASC orders lifetime bans, penalties in Bluforest pump-and-dump scheme
The Canadian Press, 18 March 2021
CALGARY — The Alberta Securities Commission has ordered permanent market access bans against Cem (Jim) Can, Charles Michael Miller and Bluforest Inc. after finding they acted fraudulently in a pump-and-dump stock market manipulation scheme.
In its sanctioning decision, the provincial regulator also ordered the men to pay a total of about $2.67 million in penalties, costs and returns of ill-gotten gains.
An ASC panel ruled last August that Can and Miller engaged in a deliberate fraud, that Bluforest made misrepresentations and that Can illegally distributed securities to Alberta investors while engaging in activities designed to set an artificial price for Bluforest securities.
In its decision, it says the scheme originated in 2010, when Can acquired control over Greenwood Gold Resources Inc., whose shares traded through US OTC Markets Group, then negotiated a framework in 2012 to repurpose it as a carbon-credit marketing company and changed the name.
