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Jay Y Fung Florida

We are investigating Jay Y. Fung for allegedly attempting to conceal critical reviews and adverse news from Google by improperly submitting copyright takedown notices. This includes potential violations such as impersonation, fraud, and perjury.

Jay Y Fung Florida

PARTIES INVOLVED: Jay Y Fung Florida

ALLEGATIONS: Perjury, Fraud, Impersonation

INCIDENT DATE: 18 Jul 2024

INVESTIGATED BY: Ethan Katz

TOOLS USED: Lumen, FakeDMCA, SecurityTrails

CASE NO: 7459/A/2024

CRIME TYPE: Intellectual Property Scam

PUBLISHED ON: 26 Nov 2024

REPORTED BY: FakeDMCA.com

JURISDICTION: USA

A summary of what happened?

Jay Y. Fung, a resident of Delray Beach, Florida, has been implicated in multiple securities fraud cases, including insider trading and orchestrating pump-and-dump schemes. His actions have led to significant legal repercussions, including financial penalties and imprisonment.

Insider Trading Involving Pharmasset Inc.:

  • Acquisition of Nonpublic Information: Fung received confidential information from Kevin Dowd, an associate who learned about Gilead Sciences Inc.’s impending $11 billion acquisition of Pharmasset Inc. through his employment at an investment advisory firm.
  • Profiting from Insider Knowledge: Utilizing this nonpublic information, Fung purchased stock and call options in Pharmasset Inc., resulting in illegal profits exceeding $700,000.
  • Legal Consequences: In March 2016, Fung agreed to repay the illicit profits along with over $60,000 in interest. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison.

Pump-and-Dump Schemes:

  • Coordinated Stock Manipulation: Between April 2009 and May 2012, Fung collaborated with individuals such as Anthony Thompson and Eric Van Nguyen to manipulate penny stocks. They gained control over large portions of public floats and disseminated misleading promotional materials to inflate stock prices artificially.
  • Execution of Schemes: The group used newsletters and websites under their control to promote stocks like Blast Applications Inc., Smart Holdings Inc., and others. After driving up stock prices, they sold their shares at the inflated values, leaving unsuspecting investors with significant losses.
  • Regulatory Actions: In November 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Fung and his associates with conducting these fraudulent schemes. The SEC’s complaint detailed how they orchestrated five separate schemes, resulting in over $10 million in illicit profits.

Additional Legal Issues:

  • RecycleTech Inc. Promotion: Fung was involved in the promotion of RecycleTech Inc. (RCYT), leading to a lawsuit by the SEC in 2012. The final judgment against him was rendered in February 2014.

Summary of Concerns and Accusations:

  • Insider Trading: Profiting from nonpublic information regarding corporate acquisitions.
  • Pump-and-Dump Schemes: Manipulating penny stocks to defraud investors.
  • Regulatory Violations: Facing multiple charges from the SEC for securities fraud.
  • Legal Penalties: Involvement in fraudulent activities leading to financial penalties and imprisonment.

Fung’s actions have significantly impacted investors and undermined market integrity, resulting in substantial legal consequences and highlighting the importance of regulatory oversight in financial markets.

 

Jay Y Fung Florida Fake DMCA

 

 

 

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

 

 

 

What was Jay Y Fung Florida trying to hide?

Jay Y Fung Florida‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Jay Y Fung Florida in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Jay Y Fung Florida may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: Jay Y. Fung – A Detailed Examination of Allegations and Legal Actions

Overview: Jay Y. Fung, a Florida-based investor, has been embroiled in significant financial scandals involving insider trading and pump-and-dump schemes. His activities have led to multiple lawsuits, substantial financial penalties, and imprisonment. Fung’s case underscores systemic vulnerabilities in securities trading and serves as a cautionary tale for investors and regulatory bodies.

This report investigates the full scope of allegations, legal actions, and the broader implications of Fung’s misconduct in the financial markets.


1. Insider Trading Involving Pharmasset Inc.

One of the most prominent allegations against Jay Y. Fung centers on insider trading linked to the $11 billion acquisition of Pharmasset Inc. by Gilead Sciences Inc. in 2011.

Key Events:

  • Source of Insider Information: Fung received confidential, nonpublic information about the acquisition from Kevin Dowd, an associate employed at an investment advisory firm. Dowd had access to sensitive details regarding the impending deal and shared this information with Fung, violating fiduciary and legal responsibilities.
  • Illegal Trades: Armed with insider knowledge, Fung purchased stock and call options in Pharmasset Inc., reaping illegal profits exceeding $700,000 once the acquisition was publicly announced.

Legal Consequences:

  • SEC Enforcement Action: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Fung with insider trading. He agreed to return the $700,000 in illicit profits, along with $60,000 in interest.
  • Criminal Proceedings: Fung pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. In 2016, he was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison, marking a significant legal outcome for insider trading violations.

2. Pump-and-Dump Schemes: Manipulating Penny Stocks

Between April 2009 and May 2012, Fung was implicated in a series of pump-and-dump schemes orchestrated with other individuals, including Anthony Thompson and Eric Van Nguyen. These schemes involved the artificial inflation of penny stock prices to defraud unsuspecting investors.

Mechanics of the Schemes:

  • Control of Public Floats: Fung and his associates acquired large portions of penny stocks’ public floats, establishing significant control over their supply.
  • Misleading Promotions: Using websites, newsletters, and promotional campaigns, the group disseminated false and misleading information about the stocks to inflate their prices artificially.
  • Profit Extraction: Once the stock prices peaked, Fung and his team sold their shares at the inflated values, leaving retail investors with substantial losses as prices plummeted.

Specific Stocks Targeted:

  • Blast Applications Inc.
  • Smart Holdings Inc.
  • RecycleTech Inc. (RCYT)
  • Several other low-capitalization stocks.

Financial Impact:

  • The SEC estimated that these schemes collectively generated over $10 million in illicit profits for Fung and his collaborators.

Legal Actions:

  • SEC Charges (2014): The SEC filed charges against Fung and his associates for securities fraud, detailing their involvement in five pump-and-dump schemes.
  • RecycleTech Case: Fung was named in a lawsuit concerning the fraudulent promotion of RecycleTech Inc., resulting in a final judgment against him in 2014.

3. Regulatory Violations and Financial Penalties

Fung’s actions have drawn scrutiny and sanctions from multiple regulatory authorities, including the SEC. These penalties include:

  • Repayment of Illicit Gains: Fung was ordered to repay profits obtained through insider trading and stock manipulation.
  • Interest and Fines: In addition to returning illicit earnings, he was fined to cover interest and penalties associated with his fraudulent activities.
  • Criminal Record: Fung’s conviction and prison sentence highlight the severity of his actions and their impact on market integrity.

4. Broader Implications of Fung’s Actions

Investor Losses:

  • Retail investors bore the brunt of Fung’s fraudulent schemes, with many losing substantial portions of their investments. These losses underscore the vulnerability of less sophisticated market participants to manipulation.

Market Integrity:

  • Fung’s actions undermined trust in financial markets, particularly in penny stock trading, a sector already rife with skepticism due to its susceptibility to fraud.

Regulatory Gaps:

  • The pump-and-dump schemes exposed weaknesses in regulatory oversight of penny stocks and highlighted the challenges of monitoring and prosecuting financial crimes involving multiple entities and jurisdictions.

5. Fung’s Current Status and Reputation

  • Imprisonment: Fung served his sentence following his 2016 conviction for insider trading.
  • Reputation: His involvement in high-profile securities fraud cases has left a lasting stain on his reputation, making him a prominent example of financial malpractice.
  • Ongoing Impact: Fung’s case continues to be referenced in discussions about the need for stricter regulations and enhanced enforcement in financial markets.

6. Lessons Learned and Recommendations

For Investors:

  • Exercise Caution: Retail investors should approach penny stocks and promotional campaigns with skepticism, as these are common targets for manipulation.
  • Perform Due Diligence: Research the legitimacy of stocks and trading platforms before investing.

For Regulators:

  • Enhance Surveillance: Regulatory bodies must bolster their monitoring of penny stock trading and promotional activities.
  • Strengthen Penalties: Harsher penalties for securities fraud can serve as a deterrent to potential offenders.
  • Improve Public Awareness: Educating investors about the risks of pump-and-dump schemes can reduce the likelihood of victimization.

Conclusion:

Jay Y. Fung’s actions represent a calculated exploitation of financial markets through insider trading and pump-and-dump schemes. His fraudulent activities caused significant financial harm to investors and exposed systemic vulnerabilities in securities regulation. The legal actions against Fung, including his prison sentence and financial penalties, underscore the importance of robust enforcement to protect market integrity.

This case serves as a cautionary tale for investors and highlights the ongoing need for vigilance, transparency, and accountability in financial markets. While Fung’s story ends with legal repercussions, the broader lessons it offers remain critical for the future of fair and equitable trading practices.

 

 

 

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Jay Y Fung Florida (or actors working on behalf of Jay Y Fung Florida), we will inform Jay Y Fung Florida of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Jay Y Fung Florida may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Jay Y Fung Florida, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Jay Y Fung Florida to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

 

 

Since Jay Y Fung Florida made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Jay Y Fung Florida is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Jay Y Fung Florida

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

 

 

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Jay Y Fung Florida Committing a Cyber Crime?

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Jay Y Fung Florida have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Jay Y Fung Florida is certainly keeping interesting company here….

CompanyNames Fake DMCA

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

 

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Jay Y Fung Florida creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

 

 

In committing numerous offences, Jay Y Fung Florida either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Jay Y Fung Florida, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

 

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

 

 

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Jay Y Fung Florida is in great company ….

What else is Jay Y. Fung hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Jay Y Fung Florida] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

 

 

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Jay Y Fung Florida that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.

Authorities we may contact and share this report with for further actions

GOOGLE LEGAL HEAD

Halimah DeLaine Prado

NEWS DESK

Washington Post & NY Times

The above decision-makers and authorities will be provided a comprehensive dossier of our findings, including anonymously submitted evidence and tips. We invite journalists to contact us to receive a copy of our complete investigation here

Credits and Acknowledgement

16/10/2024

Many thanks to FakeDMCA.com and Lumen for providing access to their database.

Photos and Illustrations provided by DALL-E 3 – “a representation of Jay Y Fung Florida censoring the internet and committing cyber crimes.”

  • We’ve reached out to Jay Y Fung Florida for a comment or rebuttal regarding this investigation. It will strongly suggest they were behind the takedown attempt if they remain silent.

    • Our investigative report on Jay Y Fung Florida‘s efforts to suppress online speech is significant, as it raises serious concerns about its integrity. The findings suggest that Jay Y Fung Florida has engaged in questionable practices, including potential perjury, impersonation, and fraud, in a misguided attempt to manage or salvage its reputation.

    • We intend to file a counternotice to reinstate the removed article(s). While this particular instance is relatively straightforward, it is important to note that, in other cases, the overwhelming volume of automated DMCA takedown notices can significantly hinder the ability of affected parties to respond—especially for those not large media organizations.

    • You need an account with fakeDMCA.com and Lumen to access the research data. However, accounts are not widely available since these non-profit organisations manage large databases that could be susceptible to misuse. Nevertheless, they do offer access to non-profits and researchers.

    • It’s unclear why U.S. authorities have yet to act against these rogue reputation agencies, whose business model seems rooted in fraudulent practices.

  • We’ve reached out to Jay Y Fung Florida for a comment or rebuttal regarding this investigation. It will strongly suggest they were behind the takedown attempt if they remain silent.

About the Author

16/10/2024

The author is affiliated with Harvard University and serves as a researcher at both Lumen and FakeDMCA.com. In his personal capacity, he and his team have been actively investigating and reporting on organized crime related to fraudulent copyright takedown schemes. Additionally, his team provides advisory services to major law firms and is frequently consulted on matters pertaining to intellectual property law. He can be reached at [email protected] directly.

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