On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in the Southern District of Texas sued eight individuals it alleged manipulated stocks to defraud clients with a pump and dump scheme. 

The regulators said seven of the defendants—Perry Matlock, Edward Constantin, Thomas Cooperman, Gary Deel, Mitchell Hennessey, Stefan Hrvatin, and John Rybarcyzk—carried out the scheme, coordinating the acquisition of shares, promoting the shares to their followers, and dumping the shares for substantial profits.

"They were aided and abetted by Daniel Knight, who, with Hennessey, co-hosted a popular stock-trading podcast that promoted the other defendants as expert traders and provided a platform for other defendants to deceptively promote the stocks they intended to dump," the SEC alleged in its complaint. According to the complaint, they earned more than $100 million with the scheme since January 2020.

The civil complaint includes several tweets from the defendants, including obnoxious braggadocio about expensive cars and other toys and photos of various MclClaren and Lamborghini supercars.

The Commission seeks a permanent injunction against the defendants, enjoining them from "business of the type alleged in this complaint; disgorgement of all ill-gotten gains and an order barring Hrvatin from participating in any penny stock offerings.

The defendants all had several aliases and websites across social media to prey on clients. 

"To their legions of followers on social media, the eight defendants have, for years, promoted themselves as trustworthy stock-picking gurus. In reality, they are seasoned stock manipulators," the complaint said.

Here's how the SEC described them.

Edward Constantin, a/k/a "MrZackMorris," a/k/a "Edward Constantinescu," 38, is a resident of Houston, Texas. His Twitter account, @MrZackMorris, had more than 551,000 followers as of December 2022. Constantin is a co-founder of Atlas Trading, a stock-trading forum on the social media platform Discord, which offers users the ability to communicate via voice calls, video calls, and text messaging, among other things.

Perry Matlock, a/k/a "PJ Matlock," age 38, is a resident of The Woodlands, Texas. His Twitter account, @PJ_Matlock, had more than 340,000 followers as of December 2022. Matlock refers to himself as the "CEO" and co-founder of Atlas Trading. 10. Thomas Cooperman, a/k/a "Tommy Coops," 34, is a resident of Beverly Hills, California. His Twitter account, @ohheytommy, had more than 129,000 followers as of December 2022. Cooperman is a member of the electronic music group Breathe Carolina and, with Gary Deel, runs a YouTube channel called the "Goblin Gang," described as "[t]wo multimillionaire day traders filming their lives for the internet to see."   

Gary Deel, a/k/a "Mystic Mac," 28, is a resident of Beverly Hills, California. His Twitter account, @notoriousalerts, had approximately 144,000 followers as of December 2022. With Cooperman, Deel runs the Goblin Gang YouTube channel.   12. Mitchell Hennessey, a/k/a "Hugh Henne," 24, is a resident of West New York, New Jersey. Along with Daniel Knight, Hennessey hosts the "Pennies: Going in Raw" podcast, which promotes Atlas Trading. His Twitter account, @Hugh_Henne, had more than 237,000 followers as of December 2022.

Stefan Hrvatin, a/k/a "LadeBackk," 35, is a resident of Miami, Florida. His Twitter account, @LadeBackk, had more than 150,000 followers as of December 2022.

Daniel Knight, a/k/a "Deity of Dips," 28, is a resident of Houston, Texas. With Hennessey, Knight is a co-host of the Pennies: Going in Raw podcast. His Twitter account, @DipDeity, had more than 171,000 followers as of December 2022.

John Rybarcyzk, a/k/a "Ultra Calls," a/k/a "The Stock Sniper," 32, is a resident of Spring, Texas. His Twitter account, @Ultra_Calls, had more than 267,000 followers as of 4 Case 4:22-cv-04306   Document 1   Filed on 12/13/22 in TXSD   Page 5 of 39 December 2022. Rybarcyzk is the founder of Sapphire Trading, another stock trading forum on Discord.

The defendants engaged in a long-running fraudulent scheme to manipulate securities by publishing false and misleading information in online stock-trading forums,  on podcasts, and through their Twitter accounts, the complaint alleges. "The defendants engaged in a pattern of conduct, sometimes referred to as "scalping," in which they recommended the purchase of a particular stock without disclosing their intent to sell that stock," the government charged.

The SEC revealed In a surreptitiously recorded Discord call on February 24, 2021, involving Knight, Cooperman, and others, Knight acknowledged that he understood the primary defendants were engaging in market manipulation and explained why he posted fewer recommendations on Twitter and Atlas than the primary defendants.

"[The less] I mention a stock, the less likely I get involved whenever all of Atlas gets a class action f*cking lawsuit . . . I'm playing this extremely smart for the very long term. If you don't think all these f*ckers go to jail or at least get sued, you are crazy. . . playing stupid does not work in court. . . it's market manipulation. . . . I mean you look up the definition of market manipulation . . ."