A British trader who allegedly intended to manipulate the stock prices of two companies over Twitter is facing fraud charges in America.
James Craig, 62, of Dunragit near Stranraer, Scotland, had securities fraud charges filed against him at a federal court in California by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Mr Craig allegedly tweeted false statements about two companies in 2013 – Audience and Sarepta Therapeutics – the SEC said.
It is alleged he created Twitter accounts to look like the real profiles of the well-known securities research firms, with several tweets suggesting Audience was under federal investigation.
It is claimed the contents of the tweets caused the share price of the mobile audio company to fall 28 per cent before the Nasdaq temporarily halted trading.
Other tweets, which allegedly caused stocks in Sarepta Therapeutics to fall by 16 per cent, claimed the drug firm was also subject to an investigation.
The SEC said Mr Craig is accused of buying and selling shares in both companies in an attempt to profit when the stock rebounded.
He has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco, where prosecutors claimed shareholders had lost more than $1.6 million (£1.05 million) as a result, according to the Associated Press.
Jina Choi, director of the SEC's San Francisco regional office, said: "As alleged in our complaint, Craig's fraudulent tweets disrupted the markets for two public companies and caused significant financial losses for their investors.
"Craig also said in later tweets that the SEC would have a hard time catching the perpetrator. As today's enforcement action demonstrates, those tweets turned out to be false as well."
Additional reporting by Press Association.
