Federal agents arrested seven people accused of taking part in a $140 million international penny stock fraud that U.S. prosecutors say is one of the largest in history, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Six individuals in the U.S. are accused of participating in a scheme to inflate the values of at least a dozen worthless stocks and market them to investors, U.S. Attorney Loretta E. Lynch said yesterday, and a seventh defendant was arrested in Canada. The stocks were sold to victims in as many as 35 countries, prosecutors said. Some victims were swindled a second time through a separate scheme in which investors were told they would pay an “advance fee” to recoup their losses, according to prosecutors. “The defendants used our securities markets as a platform from which to run elaborate fraudulent schemes to victimize unsuspecting investors across the globe,” Lynch said. “Where others saw citizens of the world, the defendants saw a pool of potential marks.” The government said the scheme took place from 2008 to July 2013.
