Google Stock Driven Up By “Put Options” Scam, Says SEC

Mar 13, 2007 at 8:23am ET by Barry Schwartz

Indian Crime Ring Targeted Google in Online Fraud from Bloomberg reports that civil and criminal charges have been filed against three Indian citizens for allegedly manipulating Google’s stock price to make a profit.

USA Today reports the three men are Jaisankar Marimuthu (32), Chockalingam Ramanathan (33), and Thirugnanam Ramanathan (34). They reportedly “hijacked” 60 brokerage accounts, and purchased Google stock to drive up the price.

One firm lost $2 million and one individual left for vacation to find his account drop from $180,000 to a negative $200,000 balance.

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Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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ONE COMMENT ON Google Stock Driven Up By “Put Options” Scam, Says SEC

Seth Finkelstein, March 14th, 2007 at 5:19 am ET:

Not that it matters much, but that’s not what the SEC said.

It was some obscure Google OPTIONS, not the stock itself, which was driven up by the manipulation.

Small-timers can’t do that to Google STOCK. That sort of gaming is the province of sleazy brokers and funds 1/2 :-).

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