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by Mike Caswell

A federal jury in California has convicted Andrew Coldicutt, a Canadian working as a securities lawyer in San Diego, on charges arising from a 2017 pump-and-dump scheme. The government claimed that Mr. Coldicutt helped set up a sham company with a puppet officer as part of a planned $5-million fraud. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Unfortunately for Mr. Coldicutt, those behind the scheme were undercover FBI agents.

The jury entered the verdict on Monday, March 24, after a six-day trial. The jurors found Mr. Coldicutt guilty on all 16 counts that he faced, which included multiple counts of securities fraud and wire fraud, as well as counts related to false registration statements. The jury reached the verdict after a five-day trial and one day of deliberation. Mr. Coldicutt has not yet been sentenced.

The finding comes over two years after the government charged Mr. Coldicutt, setting out the case against him in an indictment made public on Aug. 31, 2022. The case, as set out by the government, arose from an undercover operation against Mr. Coldicutt that took place in 2017. According to prosecutors, a group of FBI agents, one posing as a fund manager, approached Mr. Coldicutt as potential clients. The agents said that they were looking to create a publicly traded shell company, but did not want the fund manager or his fund to be identified in listing documents.

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