Cybercrimes
has reached another height especially as hackers now use social media
as a tool to cheat unsuspecting people and businesses online.
A
federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted a Scottish man on Thursday
for securities fraud after prosecutors say he manipulated stock prices
using Twitter.
James
Alan Craig, 62, of Dunragit, Scotland, set up Twitter accounts in 2013
that appeared to be associated with real market research firms before
sending out false Tweets that sent companies' stock prices plunging,
prosecutors said. He is accused of then buying the companies' stock and
profiting when the prices rebounded. Craig caused shareholders to lose
more than $1.6 million, according to prosecutors.
"This
investigation dismantled a stock market manipulation scheme that
operated with one goal in mind — to falsely defame a company in order to
destroy its stock value for financial gain," FBI Special Agent in
Charge David Johnson said in a statement.
It
was not immediately clear whether Craig had an attorney. An email to a
U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman after hours Thursday was not
immediately returned.
Craig
targeted the San Francisco Bay area sound technology company Audience
and the Washington-based biopharmaceutical firm Sarepta, prosecutors
said. He Tweeted that Audience was being investigated by the U.S.
Department of Justice on rumored fraud charges and that Sarepta papers
had been seized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, prosecutors
said.
He is accused both
times of using his girlfriend's TradeMonster account to purchase shares
in the companies and then later selling them at a higher price.
Credit: ABC News
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