The origins of the scheme are a bit obscure. But there was a guy called Carter who wanted to take control of a shell he could reverse his company, Carter Care, into. Someone put Carter in touch with Pino. Pino happened to know Louis Lesser, a Dominion of Melchizedek ambassador who claimed to be CEO of BCIT. He actually had hijacked the shell a few years earlier. It was hijacked several times, in fact.
So Lesser signed over the shell, and Carter supposedly took control. He had Pino get certs issued. Around then, the "real" CEO of BCIT, Thomas Megas, found out about it. He got in touch with Pino and told him to cancel the Carter certs and issue new BCIT certs to replace them. That was done. Then Pino started putting out those PRs. Megas was by then negotiating with him to sell him the shell. Pino paid Megas $50K and promised to pay a total of $2 million.
But Pino delayed and delayed, never delivering any more money. That went on for a couple of months. Finally some shareholders began to suspect that something was badly wrong. They contacted Megas and suggested that he call in the authorities. By then Megas evidently felt Pino would never pay, and so he turned the matter over to the SEC.
Who, as I said, let the stock continue to trade for a couple weeks more before suspending.
A complicated story, with fault on all sides.
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