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Replies to post #73158 on Optec International Inc (OPTI)
01/08/21 7:57 AM
According to the plea agreement filed in court, Nava was at all relevant times the CEO of the Surf Financial Group LLC (Surf Financial), a financial-services firm based in La Jolla, California. In 1994, federal securities regulators permanently banned and censured Nava from participating in the securities industry. Despite the two-decades’ old ban, Nava admitted in the plea agreement that he and other co-conspirators, including a licensed attorney, converted the debt of various publicly traded companies under materially false and fraudulent pretenses into unrestricted stock and then sold the stock for profit. Nava further admitted that he and his co-conspirators carried out their fraudulent scheme by entering into agreements in which Nava sold shares of various entities’ stock in public-market exchanges, only after fraudulently claiming an exemption from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) registration requirements for selling securities in the public marketplace.
In the plea agreement, Nava admitted that he directed at least one attorney, as well other co-conspirators, to prepare fraudulent attorney opinion letters that were used to remove restrictions on various publicly traded companies’ stocks so that they could be freely traded on the open market. These fraudulent attorney opinion letters permitted Nava and his co-conspirators to sell their shares of stock at times of their choosing and unlawfully to circumvent the SEC’s regulations governing the offer and sale of securities.
To conceal his involvement in the scheme, Nava admitted he used various nominees to ensure that, as Nava described it, he was a “ghost” in the transactions. Brokerage firms relied on the purported truth and accuracy of the attorney opinion letters in evaluating whether to clear the sale of shares of the restricted stocks on public markets. After the stocks were cleared for sale as a result of the false attorney opinion letters, Nava and his co-conspirators sold millions of shares of these stocks to the investing public. Nava further admitted that, after selling these shares and securities, he transferred the proceeds derived from the securities-fraud scheme into bank accounts under his direct control.
