U.S. SEC seeks $68M from B.C. 'mastermind' of huge alleged stock fraud

U.S. authorities are asking a court to order former Vancouver lawyer Fred Sharp to pay the equivalent of $68 million Cdn after he allegedly set up dozens of offshore shell companies to enable a decade-long, billion-dollar series of pump-and-dump penny stock frauds and failed to contest civil charges.

In a court filing Wednesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says Sharp, a private banker from West Vancouver who ran one of Canada’s biggest offshore-services firms, should pay $24 million US in penalties, $21.8 million US in disgorgement — a legal term for the repayment of wrongful earnings — and $7.2 million US in interest for