I think you are looking for conspiracies that don’t exist. This is perfectly normal trading for a ticker in this exact situation, when it’s just a shell. There are no MM conspiracies.
But you don't know they sold to themself or an associate. Most likely someone smart enough to realize that if the financials were made current because of a merger in the works we would have head something by now. It's going on 2 months and total silence. Talks of a merger have been going on for well over a year and all the CEO has to do is eat in a different restaurant and someone finds that as a reason a merger is in the works. As the shareholders of his other stock that did a merger over a year ago what the merger has done for their stock. It has been a disaster. When the merger was announced the stock closed at .11 and today it's down over 99% trading at a 52 week low. New of the merger boosted the share price for a few hrs. before it started giving it all back. Those that bought and held on the news are now down up to 99% on their investment.