Pretzel-shop worker with pennies in bank account charged in $1M scheme to buy Tesla, GameStop, Nvidia shares
When asked why he engaged in the scheme, the defendant said it was a 'joke'
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A part-time pretzel shop worker who had only 9 cents in his bank account is charged in a fraudulent "free-riding" scheme to buy nearly $200,000 of shares in Tesla, GameStop, and Nvidia without paying for them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says.
Deyonte Jahtori Anthony, 23, of Concord, North Carolina, is accused of opening a brokerage account in July 2022 using a fraudulent application. The SEC says he overstated his personal income and made $1 million in bogus deposits from his bank account. At the time he was working at various fast-food and retail jobs – including the pretzel chain Auntie Anne’s – and had only 9 cents in his bank account.
The headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
According to a complaint, Anthony used "immediate access" credit extended to him by his broker-dealer to purchase nearly $200,000 in shares of Tesla, GameStop, Nvidia, and a cybersecurity ETF called HACK before his deposits could be reversed for insufficient funds. The brokerage is not named in the complaint.
The brokerage caught on to the scheme, froze his account, and liquidated his holdings before he made any profits, the complaint says.
The brokerage liquidated Anthony’s holdings for a net profit of $7,127. He was not able to sell any of his holdings for profit before the brokerage froze his account.
When asked why he made the $1 million in unfunded deposits without having funds to cover the transactions, Anthony – according to the SEC – said it was "a joke" and "never really thought of it as fraud."
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Anthony is permanently barred from trading securities and must show a copy of the SEC’s complaint to any bank at which he is trying to open a brokerage account.
As of now, Anthony is not officially represented in the SEC case. No notice of appearance has been filed on his behalf.