The ASIC (Australian-Securities-and-Investments-Commission) is hunting for the Telegram groups which are involved in pump-and-dump across the crypto industry. On recent Monday, a message was posted by an “ASIC” named account in the “ASX-Pump-Organization” on Telegram platform to give a warning to about 300 participants of the group by stating that they are observing the activities of the respective group and may initiate an investigation over the group. Additionally, the message noted that it is illegal to coordinate for the pumping of shares to gain profits.
It further explained that all trades could be seen, and the trader identities can also be accessed by them. It further assured that the participants of the group are taking the risk of developing a criminal record in this way which would include fines above $1M and a certain time in prison. The majority of the members of the group supposed that the account was fake. Nonetheless, the (now deleted) message which was sent to the newspaper “The Australian” has been confirmed to be valid by the ASIC. Some of the members mocked the message, and the others expressed their frustration and anger by accusing the Securities Department of only targeting them rather than the corporate traders and firms.
They added that this is the “biggest-joke” that ASIC is spending its precious time in harassing 300 small-level investors rather than chasing after the companies worthy of it. On 23rd September, a warning was published by ASIC regarding the contemporary trend followed by the groups of social media to engage in deliberate pump-and-dump movements. It mentioned that there are some cases where the subscribers may get misled by the posts shared on social media platforms. It also stated that minimum imprisonment of 15 years would be ruled over such operations along with a fine of nearly $1M.
Cathie Armour, a commissioner from ASIC, disclosed that the department has been operating by having a close observation of the market to point out and eliminate pump-and-dump movements with consistently pushing markets to do proper management in this respect otherwise threatening their integrity by taking enforcement actions as the need of the hour. ASIC did not specifically target pumps and dumps in crypto. Nevertheless, a spokesperson from the watchdog revealed that the aim of the campaign is at the listed stocks. Nonetheless, such messaging applies to all products relating to finance, such as crypto assets.