Fugitive charged with running $5.2M pump-and-dump scheme

A Long Beach, Calif., man has been charged with running a $5.2-million “pump and dump” investment fraud that involved money laundering through Panamanian banks.

A federal grand jury in Orange County indicted 37-year-old Chad Smanjak Wednesday on 10 counts of aiding wire fraud and one count of money laundering.

Federal prosecutors say Smanjak fled to his native South Africa earlier this year and is considered a fugitive.

Prosecutors claim Smanjak and others obtained millions of shares of penny stock in a sports drink company called Rudy Nutrition and then pumped up the trading volume by trading it among themselves and issuing misleading press releases. They allegedly then dumped the stock on the market until federal regulators halted trading in 2008.