An Epiphany On Appiphany Technologies (APHD)

January 25, 2016: Here we go again. The new APHD Pump & Dump campaign is well under and although the failed business may have received a coat of whitewash, don't be fooled: the same scam artists are still behind this failed scheme.

May 19, 2014: It appears that we're now at the start of a concentrated effort to pump the intrinsically worthless shares of Appiphany Technologies (APHD). This will be the third campaign in a year, although to be frank, the previous two efforts were one day jobs by minor touts. The coming promotion appears to be a much more concerted effort, as several emailing stock pimps, including Flip Ventures, have already begun the con job for a Monday morning launch to a much broader Pump & Dump campaign. Still, on Friday shares closed at 1% their value of a year ago and that doesn't auger well for the prospect of future "believers".  As of March 24, 2014, the company reported that 20,167,277 shares were outstanding. We would almost assure you that there are many more shares than that out there now, and hence the timing of this latest fleecing. Of course, we won't know the actual number until the next financials are filed, assuming that they ever will be.

Before we try and hammer home the fact that this is a scam, why not prove it to yourself? Since this has all the makings of a classic gap and trap, why not wait until after 10:00am before you take the plunge into what could be a manipulated upsurge at the open of the market?  After all if APHD has legs, it will certainly be worth waiting for, correct? Don't worry about missing out on cheaper prices. We'll bet those prices will be available to you again later in the day. We expect that after the gap up, will come the crap out.

That APHD is a penny stock scam is unquestionable.  It was designed to be one from the beginning and never strayed from its destiny, although it may only be truly fulfilling it now.

The public entity was begat out of an S-1 filing by Wade Huettel out of the now defunct San Diego firm, Carrillo Huettel, LLP.  News of the demise of that firm was broken to the world through an article we released back in November of 2012, The article was met with much skepticism and accusations of fabrication of the facts. Later, the sudden shutdown and disappearance of Managing Partner, Luis Carrillo was understood through the SEC's announcement of litigation against the firm.

Because of the Carrillo Huettel connection and the sexiness of the intended but never realized business plan, many had speculated that it was to eventually be an Awesome Penny Stocks promotion. That was not to be, perhaps because APS has since been shutdown by the SEC's slew of trading suspensions of tickers pumped by the John Babikian masterminded Ponzi-schemer.

Luke Zouvas
Like several other of Carrillo Huettel's penny stock schemes, APHD moved over to the law offices of Luke Zouvas, a former partner at what was then Carrillo, Heuttel and Zouvas, LLP. Zouvas, himself an attorney of highly questionable integrity, has in the past, and continues to represent many filthy, dirty tickers and has been himself been close to the operation of some schemes, often with his brother, CPA Mark Zouvas. In fact, we recently received evidence of Luke Zouvas having paid graft to ensure the success of one specific Pump and Dump scheme. As the FBI, SEC and FINRA all subscribe to this newsletter, we would expect that they will come-a-calling in short order and request a copy of this evidence.

Not surprisingly, Wade Huettel is now based out of Luke Zouvas' office although it is not clear whether Huettel is actually part of the Zouvas firm.

The Life and Times of Luke Zouvas

Luke Zouvas has a reputation for screwing over his clients. In one of many examples, PrimeGen Energy (PGNE) announced that it had retained a New York law firm to commence litigation against Zouvas and his then partner, Marc Applbaun, for dissemination of untruthful, false and misleading information to shareholders. If there was any information disseminated, truthful or not, publicly against acting their clients best interests was probably illegal and certainly unethical.

On May 24, 2013, Zouvas was sued by an insurance company who had been paid to indemnify his legal practice.  Shortly after the acquisition of the policy, the insurance company agreed to provide a defense in a malpractice suit against him brought by a former client.  After forking out about $250K in legal costs, the insurance company came to the realization that the actions for which Zouvas claimed coverage had at least partially occurred prior to the coverage period, thereby relieving them of responsibility to cover him. They sued Zouvas for recovery of the expended costs

In the underlying case, which was attached as Exhibit A to the insurance company's complaint, the former client had sued Zouvas for failing to act on the adverse party's discovery demands, and for failing to disclose a settlement proposal made by the adverse party. The former client alleged that Zouvas' negligence had cost him no less than $750K.

Now instead of only footing the bill for his defense in the litigation brought by the former client, Zouvas was faced with an action to recover a bunch of money from him by the insurance company. Suspiciously, on June 14, 2013, just two days before Zouvas filed for bankruptcy, an undisclosed settlement was entered in the case brought by the former client. One might suspect that the former client was held hostage under the threat of the pending bankruptcy, forcing him to capitulate to a discounted settlements.

The bankruptcy enabled Zouvas to get the litigation brought by the insurance company stayed. Zouvas, who lives a fancy shmancy lifestyle, driving hundred thousand dollar cars and living in multi-million dollar homes, while wearing designer suits, listed $63K in bank and credit card debt as the only other unsecured creditors. As the Zouvas brothers combine for thriving practices in law and accountancy, not to mention their deep connections to companies involved in pump and dump campaigns, we'll let you draw you own conclusions as to Luke's purpose in filing for bankruptcy.

Back to APHD

For several years, we've been hearing promises about "MMA Animals", APHD's branded animation characters.  Mobile apps were supposed to be followed by books and then TV shows, none of which have come to fruition. Headquartered in Kelowna, a city of about 150,000 located in the interior of British Columbia, the one man show is operated out of CEO and man-child, Jesse Keller's apartment. We have had reports of aggressive responses and crude language used by Keller when a couple of bag holders left over from the previous pumps had the gall to reach out and demand answers from the kid.



Jesse Keller
A Kelowna radio station interviewed Keller last September (what else is there for them to do?), and that was the last development that the company deemed worthy of a press release, although we wouldn't be surprised if a press release was issued to coincide with the new Pump and Dump campaign.

A couple of unimpressive (at least by today's standards) demo videos have been uploaded to YouTube, the most recent one back in November, suggesting that progress ended there. The financials seem to back that analysis; as of March 24th APHD's only asset was about $24K in cash. So after years of development, the company has no assets, tangible or intangible to show for itself.  How can this be?

Even more telling, is the company's quarterly operating expenses of $12,696, suggesting that there is not much of an operation. We can't imagine how the company came to accrue $330K in liabilities on an almost non-existent operation, but we can provide an educated guess as to how the debt will be settled. Last September, over 1.4 million shares was issued to Asher Enterprises, a notoriously toxic financier known for funding promotions in order the interest required to exit their holdings at inflated prices. Common factors in Asher Enterprises Inc financing agreements are really high interest rates and especially ugly conversion ratios. We expect that all of the shares assigned to Asher will be dumped during the course of this new Pump & Dump campaign.

Regulatory Whammies


Interested parties should be wary of a long term DTC chill, often imposed when there is a concern about the issuance of stock and possible violation of Federal law. The chill will cause some brokers to restrict the ability of their clients to buy APHD stock for their own protection.

What should also be of a concern to potential traders is a trading halt imposed on APHD shares by the British Columbia and Alberta Securities Commissions. The Cease Trade Orders restrict British Columbia residents from owning stock in this British Columbia based company, a red flag if there ever was one.  It is the same restriction imposed on shares of Pingify International (PGFY) just before the SEC suspended trading last week. That's something to seriously consider.