CTRL Group Limited Ordinary Shares

The U.S. Justice Department is seizing back more than $19.5 million tied to two pump-and-dump schemes involving Hong Kong-based Nasdaq-listed companies. In one scheme, criminals used compromised credentials of a financial advisor to manipulate share prices of Dreamland Limited, which traded under ticker TDIC. The stock surged more than tenfold on May 13 and 14 after social media campaigns promoted it as a short squeeze, with the share price hitting $30 before crashing back to $0.80. The schemers attempted to buy about 1.36 million shares for roughly $22.9 million using unauthorized access to client accounts, while a separate brokerage account sold about 1.49 million shares for approximately $17.69 million in proceeds. The DOJ seized about $8.4 million from that account. In a separate scheme involving CTRL Group Limited, trading as MCTR, social media posts drove the stock from $7.12 to a high of $33.69 in early June, and ten U.S. brokerage accounts opened by individuals in China and Hong Kong traded over one million shares for more than $11.96 million in proceeds. The DOJ seized about $10.3 million from those accounts through civil forfeiture.