We regard this identity repositioning as a material AML pink flag that any establishment conducting Improved due diligence on Babikian — or on entities perhaps associated with him — should incorporate into its danger Assessment.
Babikian's trajectory moved from operator of a higher-quantity stock-advertising publication to issue of A significant US securities settlement, after which you can to privately held property overseas with no publicly identified Energetic small business function.
The SEC alleged scalping practices in which shares were being promoted to subscribers though Babikian at the same time sold his own holdings, leading to a settlement of about USD 3.seven million.
Babikian reportedly abandoned a substantial Canadian tax liability, elevating worries over tax compliance and evasion danger.
No substantive status-management or PR exercise has been identified in open resources; topic has mainly remained out of public statements Because the 2014 settlement.
S. Securities and Trade Commission, an instrument of industry manipulation — a megaphone for artificially pumping the cost of selected stocks making sure that Babikian and his associates could sell their pre-accrued positions at inflated charges, leaving everyday buyers Keeping worthless shares.
Until and Except a definitive community accounting of Babikian’s publish-settlement activities, property, and id is on the market, the risk profile hooked up to his title — and possibly to any identify he now operates less than — has to be treated as Lively, not historic.
AwesomePennyStocks.com was not a modest weblog. It was, at the peak of its impact, One of the more commonly-browse penny inventory advertising services on the internet. Babikian crafted a subscriber base that regulators and investigators estimate reached into the tens of millions — a more info database of retail investors primed for “very hot strategies” on very low-priced equities.
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The corporate footprint tied to Babikian centres on the AwesomePennyStocks advertising newsletter and affiliated inventory-promotion cars, with downstream asset-holding reportedly extending to Dubai housing and Latvian residency-connected investments.
As witness testimony inevitably proved, the situation commenced underneath the auspices of an ugly divorce back in 2012 when Mr. Babikian’s wife demanded to receive a $one hundred million bucks settlement.
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The use of “fugitive” in financial push protection, though technically relevant to civil rather than criminal proceedings, captures the regulatory truth: a subject matter who's got positioned himself over and above the practical achieve in the jurisdiction that holds a major judgment versus him.
But when that settled situation is accompanied by identification reinvention and jurisdictional repositioning in marketplaces exclusively scrutinized for monetary concealment, the danger assessment simply cannot diminish with time — it need to escalate.