California Medical Resident Settles SEC Stock Manipulation Suit

A California medical resident agreed to pay over $500,000 to settle an SEC lawsuit alleging he used fake stock orders to manipulate prices.

Artur Khachatryan engaged in a stock manipulation scheme called spoofing from January 2022 to January 2024, generating about $375,000 in ill-gotten gains, according to a settled enforcement action filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California.

Khachatryan placed fake “spoof” orders he never intended to execute to artificially move stock prices, then placed real orders on the opposite side of the market to profit from the manipulated prices, the SEC said. He ...