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Bank of Russia catches PFL Advisors in pump and dump scheme using Telegram channels

The investigation materials have been sent to law enforcement agencies

© Yevgeny Messman/TASS

MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. The Bank of Russia has found evidence of market manipulation in transactions involving securities of a number of issuers at organized trading on the Moscow Exchange, naming the company PFL Advisors as being guilty of a pump and dump scheme, the press service of the regulator reported.

"The transactions were carried out through the personal accounts of individuals associated with the activities of PFL Advisors, which ran the Telegram channels 'MarketsMoneyPower | RDV,' Signals of the Russian Securities Market,’ and ‘Wolf of the Moscow Exchange.’ Spreading information through Telegram channels encouraging market participants to buy or sell financial instruments was part of a coordinated activity by a group of individuals aimed at altering the current market prices of financial instruments in order to later cash in by making certain transactions," the report said.

The Bank of Russia has advised said individuals not to do that again, also restricting their trading accounts.

Moreover, following the inspection, the Bank of Russia classified the individuals’ actions as market manipulation in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 5 of Federal Law No. 224-FZ "On countering the unlawful use of insider information and market manipulation and on amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation," according to the regulator.

The investigation materials have been sent to law enforcement agencies.

Earlier on Monday, Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee, reported that the Investigative Committee had opened a criminal case on the manipulation of the stock market on the Moscow Exchange (Part 2 of Article 185.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) using Telegram channels. The accomplices used a Pump & Dump strategy, influencing the price of an asset through aggressive purchases, with the aim of performing reverse transactions at an artificially formed price, she said. Further asset sales followed the publication of materials about the attractiveness of securities in the Telegram channels they controlled, specifically ‘MarketsMoneyPower | RDV,’ ‘Wolf of the Moscow Exchange,’ and ‘Signals of the Russian Securities Market.

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