Willy...to answer your question Yes! Back at that time lots of money being made including lots of private investors paying tens of thousands a pop for new stock issues. A lot different from today. Look at the issuance history. Mike Marino, Vincent Musarro, Mark Levin, Patrcia Barrese, Tangiers, David Rumbold. David Rumbold in particular was issued a ton of stock. How much did David Rumbold pay for that stock? Was it paid to the company or to someone individually? How were these people compensated for their large losses. Some not at all. Some, like Rumbold ended up with a house in the county Purdon lives in.
If you really want to dig in you should research every single person or entity on the issuance history. In short, probably millions of reasons to engage in the behavior you brought up.
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