The historical facts of it are that yes....they deliberately did not file. They were below 250 shareholders, so the SEC didn't care. The number of shareholders shot up to over 1100, then the SEC stopped trading.
“The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the man of inferior emotional balance, or for the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.” Jesse Livermore