And it was a pretty obvious scam, too. Part of what gave it away were the excuses Schena made for his inability to file financials for the company, which at that time was an SEC registrant. None of those excuses made any real sense.
To people who've followed these stories for years, it was obvious the company had no money, and was barely hanging on. But ARYC quickly became a cult stock, and many of its shareholders just didn't want to listen. There were others, though, who complained to the regulators, and eventually the regulators acted. But it took the covid crisis to persuade them to put a stop to Schena's nonsense.