The OP references an analysis from Seeking Alpha in 2021, but it turns out that there's yet another article from Seeking Alpha[0], published all the way back in Nov 2019, calling ENOB a house of cards and highlighting a lot of the same concerns. It blows me away how fraud that's already had proof dug up by journalists can just sit there with no action from regulators for years on end. Maybe it just needs to go more viral before it stops being ignored or left unseen?
I think most people grossly overestimate the ability of government to act on fraud, scams and crime, even when there is information available. I see this with other scams & ponzi schemes. A common sentiment from both victims and con-artists is "if this is a scam, why haven't the police/government/etc... closed it down". All our governments are dysfunctional & ineffective to some degree and there just aren't enough resources to cope with everything and the burden of proof for action is high. Normally some political will is needed to prioritise an investigation into a particular company. Regulators are underfunded and outgunned by those whose massive profits rely on outsmarting them.
I could be way off, is this not like a broken clock is correct twice a day?
There are likely articles written about every legit investment as fraud with some set of numbers to back them up.
If you look hard enough there is "proof" that the usd dollar is a scam, which I think we can all agree is not true.
I doubt regulators can investigate every potential fraud and instead have to be wise where they allocate their limited resources.
This is an unfortunate case of that system not working, but I think that the system works enough that we can be sure 95% of listed companies are not fraudulent.
I'm not sure you understand how regulations work. For the most part they are enforced after the fact. The SEC doesn't have tens of thousands of employees to do due diligence on every single listing out there. That's just completely impossible.
That said, this is a great example that huge returns in the equity markets are possible if you're willing to do the work. If you read about a stock in Bloomberg you're months too late. It's the smaller edge cases where the price discovery goes all out of wack.
There were numerous skeptical articles written about Bernie Madoff during the years he was running his Ponzi scheme. Nothing came of them. Regulators generally don't step in until the system is already blowing up.
>As part of our research, we purchased a similar black market Russian medical degree from the same school, with the same claimed major, the same date, and the same “official” stamp as Gumrukcu’s. The process was surprisingly easy—the hardest part was smuggling it out of Russia through a neighboring country to the U.S., given new wartime export restrictions.
Wow... that's... interesting. Did their lawyers sign off on that?
Do you think any laws were broken? I'm not certain.
Purchasing a fake degree most likely isn't a crime (passing it off as a real one most likely is, perhaps depending on context).
Exporting a piece of paper from Russia is also probably OK, even with the sanctions? You'd want to be sure you didn't pay any sanctioned people, but that's probably not that hard. I imagine that the hard part might mostly be that the usual obvious shipping services aren't usable now if they've ceased operations in Russia.
In Turkey, there are some fascinating scams and corruption going on or blowing up, Turks don't get impressed for anything less than a billion dollars these days. Sometimes I feel for the people who don't speak Turkish and missing out the drama. Now I see that scam exports are happening.
The person in question seems to have some footprint in Turkish media too, presented as the genius Turkish doctor doing cutting edge research in the USA. These people often exploit the patriotic feelings of the people. Any questioning of their claims is viewed as treason by the wider public, so they are usually immune of scrutiny up until the money dries out and someone starts screaming "where is my money".
Andrei Jikh is on track to a similar amount but by selling poor financial advice haha.
Yes, in 2022 we have reached a point where the low-bar for being a youtube "financial influencer" is literally lacking a college degree but having experience as a magician.
Are these related to the YouTube ads I get all the time about how there's "a better way to make money through Amazon with Audible!" or similar "passive income" ads that I see all the time? It's astounding to me that we've gotten back to the point of "GUARANTEED RETURNS! NO WORK!" being so convincing that I even see people on here talk about it casually.
Interesting to see the scams play out in real time. To be clear it looks like bots on his channel not something he is actually promoting. His content seemed not that bad? Extremely clickbaity for sure.
It's crazy reading some older press on this guy [0]. It seems he duped people who should know what they're talking about. How did they fall for it?
> "Dr. Serhat recently presented his research findings at the 2021 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), regarded in the medical research community as the leading HIV and viral research conference in the world. His Hijack RNA treatment method is an elegant scientific approach that highlights his signature creativity for addressing these treatable, but incurable illnesses," says Dr. W. David Hardy, Adjunct Clinical Professor of Medicine at The Keck School of Medicine at USC. "This strategy beautifully reflects Dr. Serhat's exceptionally keen understanding of how viruses work."
While this guy definitely appears to be guilty of a bunch of stuff, it's worth noting Hindenburg Research, the firm that paid for and published this article makes money by discovering over-inflated investments, taking a short position, publicizing their research and profiting when the stock drops.
Arguably, Hindenburg is providing a useful service in funding speculative research and then educating the marketplace when they discover a significant value disparity. While Hindenburg is often correct, just keep in mind what they publish isn't from a neutral POV.
It is impossible to reconcile "put your money where your mouth is" with "wait and now you have a conflict of interest!?"
> "just keep in mind what they publish isn't from a neutral POV"
even as a mere FYI disclaimer on their behalf, they already have their own disclaimer, twice
> Initial Disclosure: After extensive research, we have taken a short position in shares of Enochian Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENOB). This report represents our opinion, and we encourage every reader to do their own due diligence.
This is an eye opening article. It's disappointing that nobody asks questions when someone with unverifiable credentials claims to have a cure for HIV, cancer, Covid and others, using leeches and mistletoe, this should immediately raise all kinds of red flags.
After reading that article, what really blows me away is that the stock is down by only ~30%. I fully expected to see a penny stock by now. I wonder what short position Hindenburg has taken...
These trades become hard at this point, as the stock available for borrow becomes limited and expensive (all of the float is already short)+ the potential for a short squeeze increases (increased by the fact it can be manipulated by insiders)
Hindenburg research does a crazy amount of research on publicly listed companies. What's shocking is how obvious the fraud is and how credulous the investors are. Nikola comes to mind.
How those situations are possible?
Why investors are not making any kind of due diligence and background check on the founders and on the technology?
I was scrutinized in deep before being hired by my company, but it seems that people are raising millions just grabbing miracle without any kind of verifications.
Why the system is so vulnerable to con men and snake oil sellers?
> How those situations are possible? Why investors are not making any kind of due diligence and background check on the founders and on the technology?
Not only some people within the company questioned the magician's credentials but were fired for doing so and these people were subsequently harassed by the company itself to make them keep their mouth shut, in order to protect the "reputation" of the scammer.
To me it seems like some higher ups were complicit...
> Enochian’s former CFO is currently embroiled in an undisclosed lawsuit with Enochian’s leadership, claiming he was fired for asking “critical questions” about “serious financial improprieties” and large payments to Gumrukcu, and for questioning the company’s close association with an individual accused of numerous felonies.
Using the name “Enochian” was a pretty clear warning sign the dude was into magic.
However, the history of Enochian magic is actually quite interesting and revolves around John Dee, the origination of the idea of manifest destiny, and ultimately England’s exploration of the “new world”.
If he's real, you look like an idiot and might get sued.
If he's good at his con you won't know which other people have also seen through it. If you bring it up with a believer, you're in for a harsh response.
If it's just a temporary con that will die soon, it doesn't need you to help it die.
It costs at least something to do due diligence, so not everyone will know it's a con. You've spent the effort and invested something. You have a sunk cost, why not wait for a bigger fool to come along? This is maybe the big one, because this is a mechanism for snowballing the thing.
End of the day, authorities need more resources to find these kinds of things, and they need resilience against losing cases if they are going to try a lot of shady practices.
Maybe my biggest complaint about this world is when I see conmen living in the open. I've come across several in my life of various sizes.
> In a phone interview, Chairman Rene Sindlev admitted to us “I knew that he had been charged for 14 (felony) counts” but moved forward with the deal and expanded the relationship anyway.
Highly likely they did detect him and view him as a useful idiot who will take the fall while delivering pieces of the pie to the "right" and "innocent" people.
Funny that this comes up here now because I recently learned that the co-founder got arrested [1] But at least they have "Strong Confidence in the Promising Future of the Company".
In 2022, we have seen so many SPAC's crash and burn so stories like these don't surprise me anymore.
I've only sold short one company. It was called Parateum, and claimed to sell IoT products to telecoms in emerging economies. They were worth about $550 million at the time.
It caught my eye when I was looking through their accounts and saw a very dubious clause that defined the way they recognized revenue. Basically it said management can unilaterally decide when revenue happens, and they were deciding it happened whenever they dispersed a press release about a supposed new major contract being signed. The money never existed.
I decided they were a fraud for certain when I used Google Earth to search the addresses of their offices in various countries they claimed to do business in. Time after time, the result was a dead end dirt road in the African bush, or some dingy hovel in South East Asia occupied by a suspicious looking night club.
It was that easy. I had the short on for about a year until a major hedge fund released a report on it. Shares fell ~90% pretty quickly. They've been delisted since.
We see this time and again - to be clear, it will continue forever.
The goal is take meetings with those who don't probe too deep. Who doesn't ask too many questions? Personally a trend I've seen it starts with groups/investors who want to break into the space and jump at any deal because that's all they have. After you get a lead, it's relatively easy to get follow on money that almost never asks questions.
If you're willing to out right lie you can get very far. It catches up as eventually you run out of groups who are willing to believe the lies.
Perhaps most shocking, to Americans anyway, the links to public institutions:
> ... close friendship and mentee relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci and his relationship with Bill Gates, Dybul called Gumrukcu a “rare genius”
> Dr. Brosgart has served as a Senior Advisor on Science and Policy for the CDC since 2011, in addition to her roles as director on Enochian’s board ...
"We learned of Gumrukcu’s actual past by scouring old magic shops and second-hand bookstores in Turkey, finding that he was a local magician. With his stage name “Dr. No”, he studied and taught spoon-bending, firewalking, and performing as a mentalist, claiming magical healing powers and garnering praise from the likes of fellow hucksters like Uri Geller."
This must be an odd kind of company to work for, unless they're based in Turkey. "Joe, your job today is to fly to Turkey and look around old magic shops..."
> s he awaited sentencing following a pleading guilty to one felony, Gumrukcu attended the Nasdaq bell ringing ceremony for Enochian, likely with permission from his probation officer. He was praised as Enochian’s “scientific founder” at the ceremony.
Does NASDAQ have any rules preventing major shareholders from listing if they are actively being investigated or literally on probation? Shouldn't this be a thing? Do they not background check major shareholders of companies trying to list? An alleged major reason big exchanges have valuation requirements for companies to meet the list is to prevent this kind of thing.
[+] [-] bilalq|3 years ago|reply
[0]: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4307809-enochian-bioscience...
[+] [-] altacc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drawingthesun|3 years ago|reply
There are likely articles written about every legit investment as fraud with some set of numbers to back them up.
If you look hard enough there is "proof" that the usd dollar is a scam, which I think we can all agree is not true.
I doubt regulators can investigate every potential fraud and instead have to be wise where they allocate their limited resources.
This is an unfortunate case of that system not working, but I think that the system works enough that we can be sure 95% of listed companies are not fraudulent.
[+] [-] refurb|3 years ago|reply
That said, this is a great example that huge returns in the equity markets are possible if you're willing to do the work. If you read about a stock in Bloomberg you're months too late. It's the smaller edge cases where the price discovery goes all out of wack.
[+] [-] rmbyrro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jandrese|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alephnan|3 years ago|reply
I'm not sure SeekingAlpha is viewed as a formal journalistic channel. It's the equivalent of Medium where amateurs can participate, too.
[+] [-] Thorrez|3 years ago|reply
Wow... that's... interesting. Did their lawyers sign off on that?
[+] [-] jhugo|3 years ago|reply
Purchasing a fake degree most likely isn't a crime (passing it off as a real one most likely is, perhaps depending on context).
Exporting a piece of paper from Russia is also probably OK, even with the sanctions? You'd want to be sure you didn't pay any sanctioned people, but that's probably not that hard. I imagine that the hard part might mostly be that the usual obvious shipping services aren't usable now if they've ceased operations in Russia.
[+] [-] mrtksn|3 years ago|reply
The person in question seems to have some footprint in Turkish media too, presented as the genius Turkish doctor doing cutting edge research in the USA. These people often exploit the patriotic feelings of the people. Any questioning of their claims is viewed as treason by the wider public, so they are usually immune of scrutiny up until the money dries out and someone starts screaming "where is my money".
[+] [-] sigil_my_ev|3 years ago|reply
Yes, in 2022 we have reached a point where the low-bar for being a youtube "financial influencer" is literally lacking a college degree but having experience as a magician.
[+] [-] alexb_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blobbers|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nimos|3 years ago|reply
https://amazonwt.com/
Interesting to see the scams play out in real time. To be clear it looks like bots on his channel not something he is actually promoting. His content seemed not that bad? Extremely clickbaity for sure.
[+] [-] belter|3 years ago|reply
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/efficientmarkethypothes...
[+] [-] pea|3 years ago|reply
> "Dr. Serhat recently presented his research findings at the 2021 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), regarded in the medical research community as the leading HIV and viral research conference in the world. His Hijack RNA treatment method is an elegant scientific approach that highlights his signature creativity for addressing these treatable, but incurable illnesses," says Dr. W. David Hardy, Adjunct Clinical Professor of Medicine at The Keck School of Medicine at USC. "This strategy beautifully reflects Dr. Serhat's exceptionally keen understanding of how viruses work."
[0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/la-based-research-s...
[+] [-] mrandish|3 years ago|reply
Arguably, Hindenburg is providing a useful service in funding speculative research and then educating the marketplace when they discover a significant value disparity. While Hindenburg is often correct, just keep in mind what they publish isn't from a neutral POV.
[+] [-] yieldcrv|3 years ago|reply
It is impossible to reconcile "put your money where your mouth is" with "wait and now you have a conflict of interest!?"
> "just keep in mind what they publish isn't from a neutral POV"
even as a mere FYI disclaimer on their behalf, they already have their own disclaimer, twice
> Initial Disclosure: After extensive research, we have taken a short position in shares of Enochian Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:ENOB). This report represents our opinion, and we encourage every reader to do their own due diligence.
[+] [-] samatman|3 years ago|reply
Good to know, my priors as to its accuracy went way up.
You can go to prison for lying to make money, you know. It's not civil like libel, it's fraud.
[+] [-] rossdavidh|3 years ago|reply
1) they say so, in sizeable font, at the bottom of the article
2) they called very well that Musk would try to back out or get a better price on Twitter; they are often correct
[+] [-] csours|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lodovic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deng|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cascom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random314|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lormayna|3 years ago|reply
I was scrutinized in deep before being hired by my company, but it seems that people are raising millions just grabbing miracle without any kind of verifications.
Why the system is so vulnerable to con men and snake oil sellers?
[+] [-] throw_m239339|3 years ago|reply
Not only some people within the company questioned the magician's credentials but were fired for doing so and these people were subsequently harassed by the company itself to make them keep their mouth shut, in order to protect the "reputation" of the scammer.
To me it seems like some higher ups were complicit...
> Enochian’s former CFO is currently embroiled in an undisclosed lawsuit with Enochian’s leadership, claiming he was fired for asking “critical questions” about “serious financial improprieties” and large payments to Gumrukcu, and for questioning the company’s close association with an individual accused of numerous felonies.
So many redflags...
[+] [-] soco|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudden_dystopia|3 years ago|reply
However, the history of Enochian magic is actually quite interesting and revolves around John Dee, the origination of the idea of manifest destiny, and ultimately England’s exploration of the “new world”.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] floatinglotus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wly_cdgr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|3 years ago|reply
If he's real, you look like an idiot and might get sued.
If he's good at his con you won't know which other people have also seen through it. If you bring it up with a believer, you're in for a harsh response.
If it's just a temporary con that will die soon, it doesn't need you to help it die.
It costs at least something to do due diligence, so not everyone will know it's a con. You've spent the effort and invested something. You have a sunk cost, why not wait for a bigger fool to come along? This is maybe the big one, because this is a mechanism for snowballing the thing.
End of the day, authorities need more resources to find these kinds of things, and they need resilience against losing cases if they are going to try a lot of shady practices.
Maybe my biggest complaint about this world is when I see conmen living in the open. I've come across several in my life of various sizes.
[+] [-] irrational|3 years ago|reply
> In a phone interview, Chairman Rene Sindlev admitted to us “I knew that he had been charged for 14 (felony) counts” but moved forward with the deal and expanded the relationship anyway.
[+] [-] myst11|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsemrau|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://app.finclout.io/t/nDxEoGG
[+] [-] belter|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RF_Savage|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] missedthecue|3 years ago|reply
It caught my eye when I was looking through their accounts and saw a very dubious clause that defined the way they recognized revenue. Basically it said management can unilaterally decide when revenue happens, and they were deciding it happened whenever they dispersed a press release about a supposed new major contract being signed. The money never existed.
I decided they were a fraud for certain when I used Google Earth to search the addresses of their offices in various countries they claimed to do business in. Time after time, the result was a dead end dirt road in the African bush, or some dingy hovel in South East Asia occupied by a suspicious looking night club.
It was that easy. I had the short on for about a year until a major hedge fund released a report on it. Shares fell ~90% pretty quickly. They've been delisted since.
[+] [-] BbzzbB|3 years ago|reply
Nikola Motor Co was valued $22B with a "fully functional" truck rolling downhill.
Maddoff ponzied $65B without a business.
It really is wild that so much money gets thrown at frauds without proper due diligence.
[+] [-] irjustin|3 years ago|reply
The goal is take meetings with those who don't probe too deep. Who doesn't ask too many questions? Personally a trend I've seen it starts with groups/investors who want to break into the space and jump at any deal because that's all they have. After you get a lead, it's relatively easy to get follow on money that almost never asks questions.
If you're willing to out right lie you can get very far. It catches up as eventually you run out of groups who are willing to believe the lies.
[+] [-] runnr_az|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everybodyknows|3 years ago|reply
> ... close friendship and mentee relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci and his relationship with Bill Gates, Dybul called Gumrukcu a “rare genius”
> Dr. Brosgart has served as a Senior Advisor on Science and Policy for the CDC since 2011, in addition to her roles as director on Enochian’s board ...
[+] [-] rossdavidh|3 years ago|reply
This must be an odd kind of company to work for, unless they're based in Turkey. "Joe, your job today is to fly to Turkey and look around old magic shops..."
[+] [-] slhck|3 years ago|reply
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1527728/000173112222...
[+] [-] throw_m239339|3 years ago|reply
https://www.justice.gov/usao-vt/pr/two-men-charged-murder-hi...
Hopefully justice will prevail. It's one thing to defraud people, it's another to eliminate one's victim so they don't testify in a court of law...
[+] [-] dataangel|3 years ago|reply
Does NASDAQ have any rules preventing major shareholders from listing if they are actively being investigated or literally on probation? Shouldn't this be a thing? Do they not background check major shareholders of companies trying to list? An alleged major reason big exchanges have valuation requirements for companies to meet the list is to prevent this kind of thing.