Benjamin Thompson Kirk is a businessman who has been fined by multiple authorities for engaging in financial scams.
In 2015, he was fined by the Alberta Securities Commission for participating in a ‘pump and dump’ scheme with two other individuals.
He was fined $100,000 by the Alberta Securities Commission and received a permanent ban from participating in the Alberta securities market. In this case, John Bruce Kirk and Dylan Leslie Boyle were his accomplices in the crime.
The three men collaborated to endorse investments in businesses that they had authority over. The companies in question are Skymark Research, Liberty Analytics, and Emerging Stock Report.
Despite lacking any registration to act as advisors, Benjamin Thompson Kirk and the other two men in their companies claimed to offer consumers independent market research services.
In addition, they confessed to artificially inflating the stock prices of Tradeshow Marketing and Pacific Blue Energy, both of which are companies based in the United States.
Additional information regarding the actions taken by ASC against Benjamin Thompson Kirk
The firms were promoted through phone calls and promotional emails. Despite holding significant shares in the companies, Benjamin Thompson Kirk and the other two individuals failed to disclose this information.
The share prices of those two companies were artificially inflated as a result.
According to the documentation, the three men had promised the investors significant returns by claiming that the company was about to experience a breakthrough. The Alberta Securities Commission noted that making claims about the profitability of investments without disclosing their risky nature was not reasonable.
It is worth mentioning that Benjamin Thompson Kirk is the son of Bruce Kirk, the founder of Tradeshow. Neither he nor his brother John Kirk disclosed this fact to the investors.
ASC observed that the Kirk brothers were significantly and continuously involved in the operations of Pacific Blue. Additionally, ASC has pointed out that Pacific Blue is a shell company that was used to facilitate the purchase.
The three men caused the stock’s value to plummet by dumping their shares when the share prices had peaked.
Furthermore, there is more to it. ASC has observed that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against the three men in New York.
Benjamin Thompson Kirk’s latest pump and dump scam.
Thirteen individuals from British Columbia were charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2021. The charges were related to an alleged pump-and-dump scheme worth $1 billion.
According to the SEC, Fred Sharp, a resident of West Vancouver, was identified as the mastermind behind this alleged fraudulent scheme.
In addition to Fred Sharp, Benjamin Thompson Kirk played a significant role in this fraudulent scheme.
From 2010 to 2019, the team executed a sophisticated pump-and-dump scheme. Fred Sharp had created multiple shell companies, which were used.
Fred was previously a lawyer but later transitioned into a career as a businessman.
According to allegations made by the SEC and the FBI, Benjamin Thompson Kirk and Fred Sharp were utilizing shell companies to conceal their beneficial ownership of the shares they were promoting.
According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the fraudulent scheme resulted in a net profit of over $770 million.
The allegations suggest that certain insiders, including Jay Scott Kirk Lee, Benjamin Thompson Kirk, and Fred Sharp, among others, concealed their shares through the use of nominee owners and by holding less than 5% of the total shareholdings. This was done to avoid disclosure requirements.
Likewise, the insiders provided false information to brokers and trading agents to present the insider shares as legally tradeable on the open market for individual investors.
This is a proper name and doesn’t require any rewriting. Allegedly, Kirk and his accomplices artificially inflated the value of the companies before selling off their shares.
According to a statement by the SEC, the defendants, in this case, were clients of Fred Sharp and his offshore platform. Additionally, it was noted that the platform served as a provider of services for individuals seeking to engage in penny stock fraud, which is illegal.
Additionally, it has been alleged that this group of scammers played a crucial role in a fraudulent scheme that lasted for a decade, resulting in a net profit of over $770 million from gross stock sales exceeding $1 billion.
The SEC has filed the charging document in the District of Massachusetts, which is where the majority of the victims are located. According to this document, Benjamin Thompson Kirk and his accomplices engaged in illegal trading of at least 10 junior American companies, resulting in earnings of approximately $77.3 million.
The SEC stated that the defendants had the belief that they could engage in penny stock fraud without facing any consequences by becoming a part of Fred’s network of shell companies.
It is unclear how Fred Sharp, Benjamin Thompson Kirk, and others executed their scheme. However, following the announcement of the charges, the BC Securities Commission imposed trading bans on Benjamin Thompson Kirk on January 25, 2021.
Benjamin Thompson Kirk communicated with Fred Sharp through an encrypted cell phone network. He referred to himself as “Bertie” there.
Courtney Kelln and Yvonne Gasarch were also involved in this scam and are worth mentioning. All of them are charged with criminal securities fraud.
What was the method used to carry out this scam?
To begin with, a public company named Buka Ventures Inc was merged with a private firm called Nutranomics. Back in 2013, its trading value was 12 cents per share.
The scammers made baseless and absurd claims about the company.
In addition, Benjamin Thompson Kirk and Fred established Nugget Enterprises LLC, a marketing firm located in Saint Kitts, which is a country in the Caribbean. The company was established to conceal Benjamin’s use and the origins of the promotional materials.
Later, they had a detailed discussion about the appropriate timing for executing manipulated trades and proceeded to promote the firms in the autumn of 2013.
Upon promoting the firm, the value of its stock increased to $1 per share, prompting them to immediately sell all of its Nutranomics shares.
Benjamin Thompson Kirk, Fred Sharp, and their associates collectively possessed 20 million shares of the company and generated a total revenue of more than $16.35 million.
The fraudulent scheme involved the use of several other companies such as Independence Energy, Willow Creek, iTalk, Punchline, Green Innovations, Axiom, and Ami James.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seeking several legal remedies, including permanent injunctions, civil penalties, trading bans for penny stocks, and restitution of their unlawfully obtained funds.
Using Fake DMCA Notice
The act of using fake DMCA notices to take down news articles is unethical and illegal. It involves submitting false claims of copyright infringement to online platforms, which can result in the removal of content without proper investigation. This practice undermines the principles of free speech and transparency and can have serious consequences for journalists and media outlets. It is important to respect intellectual property rights, but this should not be used as a tool to suppress legitimate reporting and criticism.
It appears that an individual claiming to represent Benjamin Thompson Kirk is submitting false DMCA takedown notices against news articles that reference his history of fraudulent activities.
DMCA notices are typically effective in assisting companies to prevent copyright infringement. Unfortunately, many scammers engage in the practice of copying content that they do not want to appear on Google and then reposting it on their website with a modified date. They then falsely claim to be the original owners of the content.
Submitting false DMCA notices is considered fraudulent, involves perjury, misrepresents information, and amounts to identity theft.
Using such tactics is highly notorious, illegal, and unethical.
In addition, numerous scammers employ this technique to conceal crucial reviews and any implicating evidence from the internet.
Snir Moshe Hananya is a person who engaged in money laundering as a means to conceal his questionable history.
MSP Limited is a forex scam that uses a tactic to conceal negative customer reviews, which reveal their questionable practices.
Conclusion
Given Benjamin Thompson Kirk’s history of running fraudulent schemes and the multiple charges of fraud against him, it would be unwise to place trust in him.
He was implicated in a multi-million dollar penny stock fraud scheme, and prior to that, he had been accused of operating a similar scheme.
In addition, an individual representing him has been submitting false DMCA notices in an attempt to remove information about his deceitful history. For these reasons, I do not recommend working with him. Beware!
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