This item is part of Stockwatch's value added news feed and is only available to Stockwatch subscribers.

Here is a sample of this item:

by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, perhaps not surprisingly, has been unable to serve its charges on Dmitrii Yevgenyevich Kushnarev, a Russian man charged for an account hacking scheme that generated $1.5-million in gains. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The SEC says that Russia is not co-operative with attempts to serve any civil cases, including that of Mr. Kushnarev. The regulator is seeking permission to deliver the case via e-mail.

The request comes as part of a case in which the SEC claims that Mr. Kushnarev, 59, obtained access to hundreds of retail brokerage accounts in the United States and Canada. He then used those accounts to manipulate thinly traded stocks, according to the SEC. He was able to profit from the manipulations using offshore accounts that he held using aliases (of which he has 20), the SEC said.

The case is about six months old but has seen little activity, mostly owing to the SEC's inability to serve Mr. Kushnarev. The SEC says his last known address is in Lyubertsy, a suburb of Moscow, where it is impossible to serve any civil cases. "The Russian Federation refuses to serve letters of request from the United States for service of process presented under the terms of the 1965 Hague Service Convention," the SEC says, quoting advice from the U.S. Department of State.

The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
Sign-up for a FREE 30-day Stockwatch subscription and SEE NO ADS