I can't imagine this to be the case. This would lay waste to the markets and faith in the stock exchanges. Imagine someone buying in good faith a publicly listed stock on an exchange, to suddenly discover that he holds toilet paper while the likes of Ken ride off into the sunset with billions of profit. There must be a system in place to protect innocent investors from such a calamity - some sort of industry insurance to protect against this.
Doc, I had a long chat with Larry Smith a few years ago on the subject of losing your shares to naked shorting and he absolutely said "no", it won't happen. No legit buyers will lose their shares.