The future looks grim for con man Bill Chaaban as trading in three tickers associated with him are suspended
February 22, 2016: Unabashed, unashamed and illogical "Billievers" in the Creative Edge Nutrition (FITX) con job were the recipients of the final in many comeuppances on Friday as the SEC finally put the "Whoa Nelly" on the scheme. The "special people" are now faced with the very real fact that they have been relieved of their investments. Of course, as with other cult stocks, there will still be those that go to their grave kicking and screaming in support of Bill Chaaban's snake oil pitch with no concern that the illusionist made off with millions of their dollars.
» Related: FITX Postmortem: Desperate Times Call For Stupid Measures
The suspension in trading in shares in FITX was announced together with similar orders to slam-on-the brakes in trading in AI Document Services, Inc. (AIDC) and Interactive Health Network (IGRW). These concurrent suspensions were not a coincidence as AIDC and IGRW also have deep connections to Chaaban and FITX. On July 15, 2013, FITX announced the acquisition of 30 million shares of AIDC in exchange for an FITX subsidiary. Friday would have marked the intial Pump & Dump effort on AIDC.
As for IGRW, Chaaban acquired 25 million shares of the company on July 23, 2013, back when the company was known as HPC POS System Corp. and traded under symbol HPCS. Since Bill acquired these shares, IGRW has undergone no less than six Pump & Dump campaigns, prior to Friday's ill-fated attempt. Considering the amount of dumping that took place, Bill has certainly rung the register on those cheaply acquired shares.
» Related: IGRW Past Performances
The timing of the suspensions coincided with the Friday Pump & Dump campaigns that were due to launch on shares of AIDC and IGRW. Promotional activities had already begun on Thursday evening as the newsletters of Freedom Ventures had sent out emails touting the stocks.
In what may actually be a coincidence, Michael Affa, one of the former owners of those newsletters had been sentenced to 33 months in prison for securities and wire fraud just days before the promotions and subsequent suspensions on AIDC and IGRW.
» Related: First of the Affa Brothers Sentenced to 33 Months for AMOG Pump & Dump
In further eyebrow raising news, the SEC announced on February 17 that Randy Hamdan, the one time owner of hundreds of millions of shares in FITX--and presumably a significant benefactor of the fraud executed on that stock-- settled charges brought by the federal regulator for running a Pump & Dump scheme on shares of Compusonics Corp (CMPU). During the period June 2012 to September 2013, FITX issued well over 400 million shares of common stock directly to Hamdan and companies controlled by him. This number represented over 12% of the total shares issued and outstanding at the time.
It would require a hell of a belief in coincidences to think that the timing of the Hamdan settlement and the Friday suspensions were just happenstance.
It would also be hard to believe that it is just a coincidence that the Chaaban New York City condo, purchased in Bill's wife's name during the summer of 2014 from proceeds of Bill's sale of FITX shares, is now for sale. Matt Finston did a nice job of pulling records documenting the purchase of that condo in this article from a year ago.
Maybe you believe that all these occurrences are just the result of some cosmic fate and each event is not tied to the other. But in light of all of these seemingly abrupt turns of events, it would not be far-fetched to believe that an announcement of the indictment of Bill Chaaban is forthcoming. In fact that it is a development that we believe is imminent.