2020-05-31, 11:47 PM
"Over the past 4 years I have spent a great deal of time researching stock promoters and penny stocks and during that time no stock promotion company created a bigger fan base than Awesome Penny Stocks. One name above all others stands out in connection to Awesome Penny Stocks - Eric Van Nguyen.
This report will summary the key points of my research over the past 4 years and piece together to the best of my ability the history of Awesome Penny Stocks (from its rise to its fall) as well as the rags to riches story of Eric Van Nguyen and how we went from a subpar day trader and sushi chef to an IHUB message board pumper to the biggest name in penny stock promotions amassing a fortune of well over $100 million from his illegal stock promotion activities while remaining out of jail to date".
a
a
Eric Van Nguyen got his start trading penny stocks at a day trading firm in Montreal called Swifttrade prior to 2006. While at the day trading firm he lost $100,000 of the money his father lent him all within a matter of months.
At this time he was only in his early 20s but he obviously had his mind made up that he wanted to make something of himself in the stock market.
a
a
While trying to break into the whole stock business, Eric was a sushi chef at a restaurant in Montreal called Shogun. Eric's dad and brother worked at the same restaurant. Later in 2012 Eric would offer a nice review for his old employer on yelp.
Eric Van Nguyen got started on the IHUB message boards in 2007 shortly after his day trading experiences posting under the alias ericvan. Eric learned the IHUB posting game from IHUB regulars like Doug Osbourne and Laurie Mazzarella. Laurie Mazzarella posted under the alias rebelgirl and was involved in a number of stock promotion companies of her own from 2006 - 2013. Mazzarella has since left the IHUB and currently runs Microcap Innovations which offers individuals paying for a stock promotion the option of staying anonymous by funneling their money through Microcap Innovations for a fee and using the name Microcap Innovations as the paying party instead. Doug Osbourne posted under the alias dooglearchie.
It didn't take Eric long to build up some strong contacts through IHUB. Eric and some of his friends were the main drivers behind Media City Corp (MCCY). Laurie Mazzarella ran the whole IHUB PR blitz behind MCCY and trained Eric in the process. Mazzarella was given free trading shares in MCCY for her efforts that she never disclosed. Doug helped with the IHUB pumping and was also given free trading shares of MCCY that he never disclosed.
MCCY was a company out of Montreal with ties to Patriot Energy Corp (PGYC), Lotta Coal Inc (LCOL), and North-West Oil Group Inc (NWOL) which were tickers controlled by Jean-Francois Amyot, Gerald Parkin, and other power mafia type individuals out of the Montreal area. The attorney for MCCY was Alain Houle who was put there by Amyot. Houle worked at Briere Lebeuf until recently. Confirmed here. Briere Lebeuf has long been very active with penny stocks in the Montreal area. JF Briere and Michel Lebeuf know Jean-Francois Amyot personally and they knew of Alain Houle's involvement in all of Amyot's deals. Houle would later hold SPPH stock for Amyot in the Caymans during that pump&dump in 2010.
MCCY looks like it was hijacked by this group in 2006. It became Effective Control Transport Inc (EFFC) in December of 2007 then was abandoned again after all the pump&dumping was over. The SEC suspended EFFC on February 3, 2014 along with NWOL and 253 other inactive tickers. PGYC was suspended by the SEC on June 2, 2009. LCOL was suspended by the SEC on September 23, 2009.
Eric spent hours and hours in his parent's basement posting on the IHUB and pumping stocks like MCCY. Some of his family members and friends took positions in MCCY and they did very well.
a
[img=156x154]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image006.jpg[/img]
a
It was during this time that Eric was also attending Concordia University in downtown Montreal. It was at Concordia that Eric met a Cambodian girl named Tally that would become his girlfriend.
In 2008, Eric founded his first stock promotion website, Xplosivestocks.com, through his company Golden Dragon Media Inc.
a
[img=324x74]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image008.jpg[/img]
a
The first stocks promoted by Xplosivestocks.com were PGYC, NVSR, VTLP, HPSO, EFGU, and BRYN:
a
a[img=385x326]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image010.jpg[/img]
Xplosivestocks.com did very well and drew the attention of other individuals like Donna Levy and David Levy who played a big part in helping Eric Cusimano grow Best Damn Penny Stocks into a successful stock promotion company in 2008. Cusimano would later do a number of deals for Jim Can linked tickers.
Donna and David Levy had Eric fly down to Florida to meet and brought him in on the BANI stock promotion in 2009. BANI was Eric's first big deal and he received a $250,000 cash payment to promote it from the Levys which Eric then deposited into his Bank of Montreal account.
It was through Donna and David Levy that Eric met Kevin Sepe. Sepe got Eric involved with Jay Fung, AJ Thompson, and Kenneth Oxsalida. This group promoted HydroGenetics Inc. (HYGN), Xynergy Holdings Inc. (XYNH), Blast Applications Inc. (BLAP), Blue Gem Enterprise Inc. (BGEM), Mass Hysteria Entertainment Co. (MHYS), Lyric Jeans Inc. (LYJN), Smart Holdings Inc. (SMHS), Recycle Tech Inc (RCYT) in late 2009 - early 2010 through websites like OxofWallStreet.com, PennyPic.com, titanstocks.com, and MonsterStox.com. The operation amounted to a $290 million pump&dump scheme in which Van Nguyen, Sepe, Fung, Thompson, Oxsalida, and others secretly owned stock in the tickers they were promoting and sold that stock during the paid promotions.
On September 11, 2014, the DOJ of New York brought charges against the group for the $290 million pump&dump scheme. The SEC had perviously brought charges against Kevin Sepe along with Melissa Rice, Ronny Halperin, Seth Eber, Howard Ettelman, and Charles Hansen III in 2012 for the HYGN pump&dump and Sepe, Fung, and Thompson along with Ryan Gonzalez and David Rees for the RCYT pump&dump.
Donna and David Levy who were career fraudsters ended up being Indicted by the DOJ of New York in December of 2011 for the CNWI and BANI pump&dumps. They were found guilty in March of 2013. David Levy was sentenced to 9 years in prison. Donna Levy was sentenced to 126 months in prison.
Eric Cusimano was arrested in Panama in June of 2014. The Indictment can be viewed here. His case is nearing a guilty plea which could come later this month.
a
[img=187x218]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image012.png[/img]
a
In 2009 Eric ran into some tax issues with the Canadian Revenue Service which he would end up resolving, but it was probably because of these tax issues that Eric brought his cousin, Suzie Ma, into the stock promotion business. Suzie had worked with Eric at the Shogun Sushi restaurant as a hostess. She spent some time as a student in LA before coming back to Montreal. While studying in the U.S. Suzie obtained a US Green Card which she used to set up Omni Consulting Corp as a Wyoming business entity. Omni Consulting owned TheOTCmarket.net and latestbusiness-news.com which did paid stock promotions, promoting many of the same tickers that Eric was involved with.
One of Suzie Ma's connections on her LinkenIn page is Kevin Carson who in 2012 was busted by the SEC in connection to the Prime Star scam. Carson was a promoter linked to GEMN (one of the ticker names in the Sherman Mazur, Marc Harris, Regis Possinio boiler room operation bust in 2013). Carson also provided some deals to Eric Van Nguyen through the years as well.
Suzie was flat broke, but after getting involved in the penny stock business with Eric, she was able to afford to buy her own apartment building and open up her own restuarant called La Pearle Noire in South Shore Montreal with her husband who had previously worked with her and Eric at the Sushi place. Recently she purchased her second restaurant, another sushi place in downtown Montreal called Saiko Bistro. The restaurant sits just 6 doors down from the Autorité Des Marches Financiers (AMF) which is the Quebec regulators in charge of financial crimes.
From hostess at Shogun to owner of two restaurants - penny stock promotion magic. Her net worth easily reached $5 million or more.
Using her US Green Card (not her Canadian ID), Suzie Ma set up a number of accounts all over the United States through Omni Consulting from Nebraska to New York. It is our belief that these accounts were also being used to hold a lot of the profits made by Eric during this time. The cash made from their deals never made it back to Canada instead it was kept in the US and never reported to the Canadian government.
Suzie wasn't the only relative of Eric's to suddenly go from rags to riches. Eric's brother, David Nguyen, who was a dishwasher at the Shogun restaurant while Eric and Suzie worked there, ended but moving into his own huge house probably paid for by Eric. Eric used David to hide his cash in the PGYC deal. Shares of PGYC were even put in David's name to hide Eric's ownership. Money made through stock promotions helped David Nguyen (aka David Ng) to start Shogun Sauces (named after the family restaurant) and helped David and Eric's Cousin, Tieu Ma, start Deal Life Inc.
a
[img=340x192]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image014.jpg[/img]
a
The success of Xplosivestocks.com also drew the attention of Tony Papa who, according to documents obtained by the Montreal Journal, became the owner of Xplosivestocks.com with Eric Van Nguyen sometime before September of 2009. Tony Papa has long been closely tied to Vito Rizzuto, the Godfather of the Montreal mafia.
An old shareholder list for NWOL (mentioned earlier in this report) shows Tony Papa, Michael Strizzi, Leo Rizzuto, Jean-Francois Amyot, Gerald Parkin, and Anthony Gallo were all shareholders in NWOL. NWOL wasn't the only penny stock that linked Amyot and Parkin with the Montreal Mafia. AURC was another. Gino Zepptini is the broker that Amyot and Papa used to help liquidate their NOWL and AURC holdings. Zepptini helped Amyot liquidate massive positions over the years and was paid under the table for his services.
Tony Papa had his own tax issues in 2008 related to his involvement in penny stocks, specifically AVBG.
[img=1x1]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image015.gif[/img]The involvement of the Rizzuto crime family in penny stocks goes back to the 1990s and early on centered around stock promoters like Robert Papalia. Interesting link here. It was probably this new association with Tony Papa that really launched Eric Van Nguyen's career as a penny stock promoter. Tony introduced Eric to all the big players in Montreal and Panama.
In 2009 - 2010, this group of Eric Van Nguyen, Tony Papa, Jean-Francois Amyot, Anthony Gallo became very close, partying together often and hitting the night clubs like Club 1234 and strip clubs on a regular basis.
Anthony Gallo who is the son of Moreno Gallo has since pulled out of the stock promotion business after his father was murdered in Mexico possibly by mafia hitmen due to some tensions between Gallo and Rizzuto. Tony Papa married Anthony Gallo's sister, Micheline Gallo. Tony Papa's right hand man was Michael Strizzi who was also a stock promoter and a confidant to the Rizzuto family. Strizzi was very close to Nick Rizzuto. Nick was killed in the run up to the attempted coup against Vito so it is a little strange seeing Strizzi working hand and hand with Tony Papa (considering that Gallo was against Rizzuto). Money talks though and Strizzi made millions with Papa and left Montreal to live in Sarnia (Ontario). It was Strizzi that later helped Eric run the GWBU stock promotion. GWBU was a ticker that had many of the Amyot associates as insiders. Strizzi also helped Joseph Padilla set-up a new brokerage firm in Panama called Sterling Securities Group which would become a key brokerage firm used by Awesome Penny Stocks starting in 2012. Padilla is a banned broker that assisted a number of pump&dump schemes while he was running Scottsdale Capital Advisors from 2007 - 2011. More information here.
Xplosivestocks.com became a big pumper of some of the Amyot shells in 2009.
In December of 2012 Jean-Francois Amyot would finally be named in SEC litigation for his SPPH fake buyout pump&dump scheme from 2010.
a
[img=405x228]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image017.jpg[/img]
a
This report will summary the key points of my research over the past 4 years and piece together to the best of my ability the history of Awesome Penny Stocks (from its rise to its fall) as well as the rags to riches story of Eric Van Nguyen and how we went from a subpar day trader and sushi chef to an IHUB message board pumper to the biggest name in penny stock promotions amassing a fortune of well over $100 million from his illegal stock promotion activities while remaining out of jail to date".
a
a
Eric Van Nguyen got his start trading penny stocks at a day trading firm in Montreal called Swifttrade prior to 2006. While at the day trading firm he lost $100,000 of the money his father lent him all within a matter of months.
At this time he was only in his early 20s but he obviously had his mind made up that he wanted to make something of himself in the stock market.
a
a
While trying to break into the whole stock business, Eric was a sushi chef at a restaurant in Montreal called Shogun. Eric's dad and brother worked at the same restaurant. Later in 2012 Eric would offer a nice review for his old employer on yelp.
Eric Van Nguyen got started on the IHUB message boards in 2007 shortly after his day trading experiences posting under the alias ericvan. Eric learned the IHUB posting game from IHUB regulars like Doug Osbourne and Laurie Mazzarella. Laurie Mazzarella posted under the alias rebelgirl and was involved in a number of stock promotion companies of her own from 2006 - 2013. Mazzarella has since left the IHUB and currently runs Microcap Innovations which offers individuals paying for a stock promotion the option of staying anonymous by funneling their money through Microcap Innovations for a fee and using the name Microcap Innovations as the paying party instead. Doug Osbourne posted under the alias dooglearchie.
It didn't take Eric long to build up some strong contacts through IHUB. Eric and some of his friends were the main drivers behind Media City Corp (MCCY). Laurie Mazzarella ran the whole IHUB PR blitz behind MCCY and trained Eric in the process. Mazzarella was given free trading shares in MCCY for her efforts that she never disclosed. Doug helped with the IHUB pumping and was also given free trading shares of MCCY that he never disclosed.
MCCY was a company out of Montreal with ties to Patriot Energy Corp (PGYC), Lotta Coal Inc (LCOL), and North-West Oil Group Inc (NWOL) which were tickers controlled by Jean-Francois Amyot, Gerald Parkin, and other power mafia type individuals out of the Montreal area. The attorney for MCCY was Alain Houle who was put there by Amyot. Houle worked at Briere Lebeuf until recently. Confirmed here. Briere Lebeuf has long been very active with penny stocks in the Montreal area. JF Briere and Michel Lebeuf know Jean-Francois Amyot personally and they knew of Alain Houle's involvement in all of Amyot's deals. Houle would later hold SPPH stock for Amyot in the Caymans during that pump&dump in 2010.
MCCY looks like it was hijacked by this group in 2006. It became Effective Control Transport Inc (EFFC) in December of 2007 then was abandoned again after all the pump&dumping was over. The SEC suspended EFFC on February 3, 2014 along with NWOL and 253 other inactive tickers. PGYC was suspended by the SEC on June 2, 2009. LCOL was suspended by the SEC on September 23, 2009.
Eric spent hours and hours in his parent's basement posting on the IHUB and pumping stocks like MCCY. Some of his family members and friends took positions in MCCY and they did very well.
a
[img=156x154]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image006.jpg[/img]
a
It was during this time that Eric was also attending Concordia University in downtown Montreal. It was at Concordia that Eric met a Cambodian girl named Tally that would become his girlfriend.
In 2008, Eric founded his first stock promotion website, Xplosivestocks.com, through his company Golden Dragon Media Inc.
a
[img=324x74]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image008.jpg[/img]
a
The first stocks promoted by Xplosivestocks.com were PGYC, NVSR, VTLP, HPSO, EFGU, and BRYN:
a
a[img=385x326]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image010.jpg[/img]
Xplosivestocks.com did very well and drew the attention of other individuals like Donna Levy and David Levy who played a big part in helping Eric Cusimano grow Best Damn Penny Stocks into a successful stock promotion company in 2008. Cusimano would later do a number of deals for Jim Can linked tickers.
Donna and David Levy had Eric fly down to Florida to meet and brought him in on the BANI stock promotion in 2009. BANI was Eric's first big deal and he received a $250,000 cash payment to promote it from the Levys which Eric then deposited into his Bank of Montreal account.
It was through Donna and David Levy that Eric met Kevin Sepe. Sepe got Eric involved with Jay Fung, AJ Thompson, and Kenneth Oxsalida. This group promoted HydroGenetics Inc. (HYGN), Xynergy Holdings Inc. (XYNH), Blast Applications Inc. (BLAP), Blue Gem Enterprise Inc. (BGEM), Mass Hysteria Entertainment Co. (MHYS), Lyric Jeans Inc. (LYJN), Smart Holdings Inc. (SMHS), Recycle Tech Inc (RCYT) in late 2009 - early 2010 through websites like OxofWallStreet.com, PennyPic.com, titanstocks.com, and MonsterStox.com. The operation amounted to a $290 million pump&dump scheme in which Van Nguyen, Sepe, Fung, Thompson, Oxsalida, and others secretly owned stock in the tickers they were promoting and sold that stock during the paid promotions.
On September 11, 2014, the DOJ of New York brought charges against the group for the $290 million pump&dump scheme. The SEC had perviously brought charges against Kevin Sepe along with Melissa Rice, Ronny Halperin, Seth Eber, Howard Ettelman, and Charles Hansen III in 2012 for the HYGN pump&dump and Sepe, Fung, and Thompson along with Ryan Gonzalez and David Rees for the RCYT pump&dump.
Donna and David Levy who were career fraudsters ended up being Indicted by the DOJ of New York in December of 2011 for the CNWI and BANI pump&dumps. They were found guilty in March of 2013. David Levy was sentenced to 9 years in prison. Donna Levy was sentenced to 126 months in prison.
Eric Cusimano was arrested in Panama in June of 2014. The Indictment can be viewed here. His case is nearing a guilty plea which could come later this month.
a
[img=187x218]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image012.png[/img]
a
In 2009 Eric ran into some tax issues with the Canadian Revenue Service which he would end up resolving, but it was probably because of these tax issues that Eric brought his cousin, Suzie Ma, into the stock promotion business. Suzie had worked with Eric at the Shogun Sushi restaurant as a hostess. She spent some time as a student in LA before coming back to Montreal. While studying in the U.S. Suzie obtained a US Green Card which she used to set up Omni Consulting Corp as a Wyoming business entity. Omni Consulting owned TheOTCmarket.net and latestbusiness-news.com which did paid stock promotions, promoting many of the same tickers that Eric was involved with.
One of Suzie Ma's connections on her LinkenIn page is Kevin Carson who in 2012 was busted by the SEC in connection to the Prime Star scam. Carson was a promoter linked to GEMN (one of the ticker names in the Sherman Mazur, Marc Harris, Regis Possinio boiler room operation bust in 2013). Carson also provided some deals to Eric Van Nguyen through the years as well.
Suzie was flat broke, but after getting involved in the penny stock business with Eric, she was able to afford to buy her own apartment building and open up her own restuarant called La Pearle Noire in South Shore Montreal with her husband who had previously worked with her and Eric at the Sushi place. Recently she purchased her second restaurant, another sushi place in downtown Montreal called Saiko Bistro. The restaurant sits just 6 doors down from the Autorité Des Marches Financiers (AMF) which is the Quebec regulators in charge of financial crimes.
From hostess at Shogun to owner of two restaurants - penny stock promotion magic. Her net worth easily reached $5 million or more.
Using her US Green Card (not her Canadian ID), Suzie Ma set up a number of accounts all over the United States through Omni Consulting from Nebraska to New York. It is our belief that these accounts were also being used to hold a lot of the profits made by Eric during this time. The cash made from their deals never made it back to Canada instead it was kept in the US and never reported to the Canadian government.
Suzie wasn't the only relative of Eric's to suddenly go from rags to riches. Eric's brother, David Nguyen, who was a dishwasher at the Shogun restaurant while Eric and Suzie worked there, ended but moving into his own huge house probably paid for by Eric. Eric used David to hide his cash in the PGYC deal. Shares of PGYC were even put in David's name to hide Eric's ownership. Money made through stock promotions helped David Nguyen (aka David Ng) to start Shogun Sauces (named after the family restaurant) and helped David and Eric's Cousin, Tieu Ma, start Deal Life Inc.
a
[img=340x192]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image014.jpg[/img]
a
The success of Xplosivestocks.com also drew the attention of Tony Papa who, according to documents obtained by the Montreal Journal, became the owner of Xplosivestocks.com with Eric Van Nguyen sometime before September of 2009. Tony Papa has long been closely tied to Vito Rizzuto, the Godfather of the Montreal mafia.
An old shareholder list for NWOL (mentioned earlier in this report) shows Tony Papa, Michael Strizzi, Leo Rizzuto, Jean-Francois Amyot, Gerald Parkin, and Anthony Gallo were all shareholders in NWOL. NWOL wasn't the only penny stock that linked Amyot and Parkin with the Montreal Mafia. AURC was another. Gino Zepptini is the broker that Amyot and Papa used to help liquidate their NOWL and AURC holdings. Zepptini helped Amyot liquidate massive positions over the years and was paid under the table for his services.
Tony Papa had his own tax issues in 2008 related to his involvement in penny stocks, specifically AVBG.
[img=1x1]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image015.gif[/img]The involvement of the Rizzuto crime family in penny stocks goes back to the 1990s and early on centered around stock promoters like Robert Papalia. Interesting link here. It was probably this new association with Tony Papa that really launched Eric Van Nguyen's career as a penny stock promoter. Tony introduced Eric to all the big players in Montreal and Panama.
In 2009 - 2010, this group of Eric Van Nguyen, Tony Papa, Jean-Francois Amyot, Anthony Gallo became very close, partying together often and hitting the night clubs like Club 1234 and strip clubs on a regular basis.
Anthony Gallo who is the son of Moreno Gallo has since pulled out of the stock promotion business after his father was murdered in Mexico possibly by mafia hitmen due to some tensions between Gallo and Rizzuto. Tony Papa married Anthony Gallo's sister, Micheline Gallo. Tony Papa's right hand man was Michael Strizzi who was also a stock promoter and a confidant to the Rizzuto family. Strizzi was very close to Nick Rizzuto. Nick was killed in the run up to the attempted coup against Vito so it is a little strange seeing Strizzi working hand and hand with Tony Papa (considering that Gallo was against Rizzuto). Money talks though and Strizzi made millions with Papa and left Montreal to live in Sarnia (Ontario). It was Strizzi that later helped Eric run the GWBU stock promotion. GWBU was a ticker that had many of the Amyot associates as insiders. Strizzi also helped Joseph Padilla set-up a new brokerage firm in Panama called Sterling Securities Group which would become a key brokerage firm used by Awesome Penny Stocks starting in 2012. Padilla is a banned broker that assisted a number of pump&dump schemes while he was running Scottsdale Capital Advisors from 2007 - 2011. More information here.
Xplosivestocks.com became a big pumper of some of the Amyot shells in 2009.
In December of 2012 Jean-Francois Amyot would finally be named in SEC litigation for his SPPH fake buyout pump&dump scheme from 2010.
a
[img=405x228]file:///C:/Users/u3/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image017.jpg[/img]
a