Cofer Black's role with NWBO (Northwest Biotherapeutics) likely leveraged his intelligence and investigative experience to help the company gather information about what they believe to be manipulation of their stock price by a group of market makers, often referred to as a "wolf pack."
Here’s an analysis of his potential involvement:
1. Background and Role in NWBO
Black joined NWBO in 2016, a period during which the company might have started to perceive irregularities in its stock price movement. His hiring suggests that NWBO was looking to take the situation seriously and investigate whether they were victims of illicit market practices such as spoofing, naked short selling, or other forms of manipulation. Cofer Black's background in intelligence would position him well for leading such efforts, as he has experience in both strategic intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence operations.
2. Gathering Evidence on Market Manipulation
Stock market manipulation, especially practices like spoofing, requires gathering both direct market data and circumstantial evidence such as trading patterns, communications, and coordination among market participants. Black’s experience in covert operations and surveillance likely made him well-suited to developing and overseeing strategies to gather such information, which could include:
Identifying unusual trading patterns: His knowledge of complex operations would be essential in analyzing suspicious market behavior.
Building networks and sources: Black could have used his skills in human intelligence (HUMINT) to cultivate contacts within financial institutions, regulatory bodies, or the market makers themselves to uncover hidden connections or illicit behaviors.
Working with law enforcement: His ability to work across jurisdictions would be crucial, given the need to possibly coordinate efforts with agencies such as the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), the DOJ (Department of Justice), and potentially international bodies.
3. Gathering and Synthesizing Information
Given his prior experience, it is plausible that Black’s work would involve a multi-pronged intelligence approach to gather evidence against the accused market makers. This would have included:
Forensic financial analysis: Working with financial experts to analyze trading data and identify spoofing patterns (e.g., large orders placed with the intention to cancel, orders that never execute but influence the market). Cyber and electronic surveillance: Although Black’s experience is more in traditional intelligence methods, modern financial manipulation involves sophisticated algorithms, and he would need to employ experts in cyber intelligence to investigate the use of automated trading systems and algorithms designed to spoof or manipulate market prices.
Strategic Litigation Support: Black’s role may have extended to advising NWBO's legal team on how to organize and present the intelligence in a way that would stand up in court. His experience in dealing with complex counterterrorism operations may have helped NWBO’s lawsuit by shaping the narrative of coordinated manipulation and providing a clear evidentiary trail.
4. Involvement in NWBO’s 2022 Lawsuit
In 2022, NWBO filed a lawsuit against seven market makers, accusing them of spoofing, a form of market manipulation. Black may have played a role in gathering or validating some of the evidence used in this lawsuit, particularly in helping NWBO connect the dots between the individual actions of these market makers and broader patterns of manipulation.
In January 2016 Black became an independent director of publicly traded biotechnology company Northwest Biotherapeutics (NWBO) to investigate the market manipulation of the company's stock by the hedge fund "wolfpack". The wolfpack and others use naked shorting of stock to drive promising young biotechs toward bankruptcy or to the point where they need to raise capital at extremely low valuations from the wolfpack themselves.
Black’s involvement could have focused on:
Identifying key players: Using intelligence techniques to figure out which market makers or traders were actively participating in or benefiting from the manipulation.
Tracing relationships and communication:
Black’s experience in investigating terrorist networks could be repurposed to examine relationships between traders or firms in the lawsuit, potentially uncovering communications or coordination that would suggest collusive behavior.
Building the case for intent:
One of the challenges in prosecuting market manipulation cases is proving intent. Black’s deep background in counter-intelligence and behavioral analysis could have been critical in establishing that the market makers' activities were deliberate and coordinated, not just coincidental.
5. Challenges
While Black’s background in counterterrorism would have prepared him for high-level intelligence operations, the world of financial markets is highly specialized and complex. He would likely have had to collaborate closely with financial experts, data analysts, and legal advisors to properly understand and contextualize the data he was collecting. His strengths would lie in identifying patterns of behavior, establishing intent, and connecting seemingly disparate pieces of evidence, but he would likely have had to rely on others for the technical aspects of financial manipulation analysis.
Please do carry on.
The extensive bullshitting on this board is hilarious entertaining.
AI
