Happy New Year, skipcam! I hope 2018 is an absolutely wonderful year for everyone.
I can’t say that I’ve ever done due diligence on penny stocks / OTC stock that turned out to be legitimate - excepting regional banks and ADRs - some of those even pay dividends but are also expensive. No doubt there are legitimate OTC companies, but I haven’t found them.
I'm afraid the SEC has mostly taken the stance of buyer beware. The regulatory agencies which are tasked to enforce honesty and integrity are completely overstretched - most of the enforcers have scant resources to combat the growing wave of theft that has become the OTC.
Much like previous penny stock scams, they will catch only a few bad players. Very few end up going to prison, although some who are caught are assessed fines - Unfortunately, many of the scam artists walk away unscathed.
The better way when it comes to penny stocks is to educate yourself, the stocks I’ve followed over the past several years have been merely serial / repetitive scams. They change business plans annually or even semi-annually - yet their convertible debt holders mostly stay the same. They are, by every definition of the phrase, “insider enrichment schemes”, classic pump and dumps - INOH, CNXS, EVTI, MHHC, ASKE, SHOM, SMCE, GTRQ - those are just a few off the top of my head. Oh, and also one that keeps trading without officers, no office, no filings, no otcm disclosures, no SOS incorporation. The SEC ordered a penny stock and Officer / director bar against their CEO about 5 years ago for arranging for the payment of illegal kickbacks to a supposed pension fund fiduciary who promised to buy 400 million shares of the stock; he also issued stock to the middleman (who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent), who was to make the introduction to the pension fund fiduciary. Because he could not make bail, the CEO was put under in house arrest and given several years of supervised release. That stock is HESG. It was pump and dumped shortly thereafter by a group who hijacked and then abandoned the shell.
I hope this helps a bit, all the best to you.
