You said it.
"Ordinarily, traders must borrow a stock, or determine that it can be borrowed, before they sell it short."
The continual feeding of shares to the entity that services this stock's trading, seems to indicate that they know they can get the stock because they continually do.
The monetary amounts trading here are relatively small, so this is not a money making scheme, that means there is another goal for this.
My theory is that D'Couto really does want to take this private. He also needs the shareowner count to decrease to do that with impunity.
"Going dark” should not be confused with a “going private” transaction. A “going private” transaction generally involves the cash-out of all or a substantial portion of a company’s public shares so that the company becomes eligible to delist and deregister its shares under the Exchange Act. “Going private” transactions can take many forms and may involve a merger, tender offer or reverse split of the company’s shares."
The motivation to hold this at the record lows to discourage investment by new investors.
"To avoid having to reregister, companies which have “gone dark” should carefully monitor the number of record holders they have during the year, and take steps (such as a reverse stock split or stock repurchase or tender) to ensure that they continue to have less than 300 record holders before the applicable test dates under Sections 12(g) and 15(d)."
jmho
Bill