US stock manipulator with Macau connections captured in Phuket

A 54-year-old man wanted in the US for stock manipulation and collusion in fraud was detained in Thailand on an Interpol red warrant, The Chiang Rai Times reported yesterday.

Peter Coker Jr, a citizen of the Caribbean island state of St Kitts and Nevis, was arrested at a hotel in Phuket.

Pol Maj Gen Montri Khetkhan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), led the arresting team, which acted in collaboration with the U.S. FBI.

According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, the charges against Coker and others stem from share manipulation in two companies, Hometown International and E-Waste Corp, which traded on the OTC Link Alternative Trading System.

The accused, who were business partners, took over a food company in New Jersey in 2014 and planned to open more branches in order to list their company on the stock exchange.

Coker and his partners brought Hometown International to the market in 2019, and they set the IPO price at $1.25 before “hiring stock traders to manipulate the share prices”, according to Pol Maj Gen Jirabhop, as cited by the Chiang Rai Times.

The company’s share price jumped to $12.99 on April 16, 2021, up 939% since the stock was floated two years ago.

In April, the suspect and his associates had transferred 3.5 million shares to Macau nominees. According to the CIB CEO, this made Coker a significant shareholder in the company. PC