中國公司赴美上市推手被控欺詐 Adviser on Chinese Reverse Mergers Charged With Fraud

Benjamin Wey has described himself as a “leading Wall Street American financier” who helped Chinese companies sell shares in the United States.

魏天冰（Benjamin Wey，音）自稱是“華爾街美國金融家中的佼佼者”，曾幫助中國公司在美國出售股份。

Federal prosecutors call him something else: a “master of manipulation” who reaped tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits. The F.B.I. arrested Mr. Wey at his Manhattan home on Thursday and charged him with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering in an eight-count indictment unsealed in a federal court in Manhattan.

但聯邦檢察官稱他是“欺詐大師”，賺取的非法利潤以千萬美元計。本週四，聯邦調查局(FBI)在其曼哈頓的家中逮捕了魏天冰，指控他進行證券欺詐、匯款欺詐、共謀和洗錢。駐曼哈頓的一家聯邦法院公佈的起訴書中包含對他的八項指控。

By Thursday afternoon Mr. Wey was before a judge in federal court in Manhattan for the second time this year. In June, he was found liable of sexual harassment and defamation in a trial of a lawsuit that was salacious fodder for tabloid newspapers.

週四下午，魏天冰出現在曼哈頓聯邦法院的法官面前。這已經是今年以來第二次了。6月時，他在一起性騷擾和誹謗案件中被判敗訴。那起訴訟爲小報提供了不少香豔素材。

Mr. Wey, the founder of the Wall Street advisory firm New York Global Group, is now accused of fraudulently taking Chinese companies public in the United States through reverse mergers — a process that involved buying the shell of an American company that had been publicly listed, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Wey used family members to help build secret ownership positions in the companies he took public and to manipulate their shares to reap tens of millions of dollars.

魏天冰是華爾街諮詢公司紐約國際集團(New York Global Group)的創始人。週四啓封的起訴書稱，他現被指控通過欺詐性的反向併購活動，讓中國公司在美國上市。他進行的反向併購操作過程涉及對已經上市的美國公司的殼進行收購。檢察官聲稱，魏天冰通過家庭成員，祕密在他經手上市的公司中佔據份額，並且操縱這些公司的股價，從中獲取了數千萬美元。

Together with his banker, Seref Dogan Erbek, who is based in Geneva, Mr. Wey falsified the sales, volume, demand and price of the shares of the companies they took public, according to the charges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan also charged Mr. Erbek, who remains at large.

幫魏天冰處理業務的銀行業高管塞利弗·多甘·埃爾貝克(Seref Dogan Erbek)住在日內瓦。起訴書稱，兩人僞造了經手上市的公司股票的銷售額、數量、需求和價格。美國聯邦調查局和駐曼哈頓的聯邦檢察官也對埃爾貝克提起了指控，此人仍未歸案。

“Ben Wey fashioned himself a master of industry, but as alleged, he was merely a master of manipulation,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Thursday, adding that Mr. Wey “refused to let the securities laws or the rules of fair marketplace get in the way of his dishonest scheme.”

“魏天冰自稱是行內高手，但就像起訴書說的那樣，他只不過是個欺詐大師，”駐曼哈頓的聯邦檢察官普里特·巴拉拉(Preet Bharara)在週四的聲明中說。“他罔顧證券法和公平的市場規則，決意行騙。”

In a separate civil complaint filed on Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Wey and Mr. Erbek of fraud. The S.E.C. also accused Mr. Wey’s wife, Michaela Wey, and his sister Tianyi Wei, as well as two lawyers, Robert Newman and William Uchimoto, of fraud.

本週四，在另一起民事訴訟中，美國證券交易委員會（Securities and Exchange Commission，簡稱SEC）指控魏天冰和埃爾貝克有欺詐行爲。SEC還一同指控了魏天冰的妻子麥克拉·魏(Michaela Wey)、他的姊妹魏天怡（音），以及兩名律師羅伯特·紐曼(Robert Newman)和威廉·內本(William Uchimoto)有欺詐行爲。

“Mr. Wey denies the charges against him and looks forward to clearing his name,” David Siegal, Mr. Wey’s lawyer, said in an email.

“魏先生否認對他的指控，並期待還他清白。”魏天冰的律師戴維·西格爾(David Siegal)在接受採訪的電子郵件中表示。

The F.B.I. first set its sights on Mr. Wey in 2012, when it raided his offices on Wall Street and searched his home. At the time, reverse mergers had come under regulatory scrutiny for losing investors billions of dollars after some companies were accused of exaggerating their assets and accounting fraud.

聯邦調查局最初將目光投向魏天冰是在2012年，當時搜索了他在華爾街的辦公室，以及他的家。他的反向收購活動彼時已經受到了監管機構的審視，因爲有人指責一些公司誇大了資產信息，進行會計造假，導致投資者損失了數十億美元。

But Mr. Wey’s scheme went beyond fraudulent accounting, according to prosecutors. Between 2007 and 2011 Mr. Wey identified Chinese companies that wanted to raise money in the United States and offered his firm’s services in facilitating reverse mergers. Mr. Wey would merge the Chinese companies with shell companies, in which he had a significant stake through family members including his wife and his sister. These companies included Deer Consumer Products, a maker of kitchen appliances, and CleanTech Innovations, a windmill maker, according to the indictment.

不過檢察部門表示，魏天冰不只存在會計欺詐行爲。在2007年到2011年間，魏天冰找到希望在美國募集資金的中國企業，表示自己的公司願意協助反向併購。魏天冰把中國企業與殼公司合併，並通過妻子、姊妹這樣的家庭成員持有殼公司的大量股份。起訴書顯示，這些公司包括廚房用具生產商德爾電器(Deer Consumer Products)和風機生產商新興佳集團(CleanTech Innovations)。

After the reverse mergers, Mr. Wey would gift shares in the companies to friends, family members, employees and business associates to artificially inflate the number of shareholders to create the impression that the company was mature enough to move from over-the-counter trading to the Nasdaq stock market.

在進行反向收購後，魏天冰會將公司股份贈予朋友、家人、員工及商業夥伴，人爲增加股東人數，製造公司已經充分發展足以從場外交易進入納斯達克股市的假象。

With Mr. Erbek’s help, Mr. Wey would then manipulate the share price of the companies he took public by trading between various family accounts, according to the indictment. At one point, Mr. Wey was so explicit in his instructions to manipulate the share price of CleanTech that Mr. Erbek intervened to tell him to be less blatant, court filings on Thursday showed. In an email to Mr. Wey, Mr. Erbek wrote, “Obviously, we need to be careful to give such orders/make such comments. I may explain it over the phone; please call me if you have time.”

起訴書顯示，在埃爾貝克的幫助下，魏天冰後來通過各個家庭成員賬戶相互交易的方式操控由他推動上市的公司的股價。週四公佈的法庭文件顯示，魏天冰曾非常直白地指示操控新興佳的股價，導致埃爾貝克插手，讓他不要那麼高調。在給魏天冰的一封郵件中，埃爾貝克寫道，“顯然，我們在做出此類指示或評論時要小心。我可以在電話中解釋這個問題；請在空閒時候打給我。”

Mr. Wey, who sometimes spells his last name Wei, also caused shares in certain companies to go up by manipulating trades between the accounts of family members, the indictment says. In one instance outlined by prosecutors, after doing this he turned around and promoted a sudden increase in price to prospective investors in the company. Afterward, he sold the shares in each account at the inflated price, generating millions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.

魏天冰有時會將自己的姓氏拼寫爲Wei。起訴書指控，他還通過家庭成員賬戶之間的交易哄擡某些公司的股價。在檢察官列舉的一個例子中，他在這之後不斷運作，使得這家公司潛在的投資者面對股價突然升高的情況。聯邦檢察官透露，後來，他在哄擡後的價位上將每個賬戶上的股份出售，獲利數百萬美元。

The proceeds from such trades went into the bank accounts of relatives in places like Hong Kong and Switzerland, prosecutors said. Later, the money would be repatriated to the United States. In one instance, $20 million in cash was transferred from a Hong Kong account in his sister’s name to an account in the United States controlled by Mr. Wey and his wife. The money was used for lavish purchases like a Ritz-Carlton Hotel apartment in Battery Park in New York, federal prosecutors said. These fund transfers were typically reported on the tax returns under Ms. Wey’s name as untaxable gifts from a foreign person, prosecutors said.

檢察官表示，此類交易的收益進入了魏天冰的親屬在香港和瑞士等地開設的銀行賬戶。之後，這些錢會被轉回美國。在一個例子中，2000萬美元的資金從以他姊妹的名義在香港開設的賬戶轉到了美國的一個由魏天冰夫婦掌控的賬戶中。聯邦檢察官表示，他們肆意揮霍這些錢，比如購買了紐約炮臺公園麗思卡爾頓酒店(Ritz-Carlton Hotel)的一套公寓。檢察官稱，在魏天冰的納稅申報表上，他們通常將這類資金轉移登記爲境外人士贈予的不需繳稅的禮物。

On Thursday, Mr. Wey was released on a $10 million bond co-signed by his wife and another person, and secured by equity in a Sag Harbor, N.Y., house. He will be subject to home detention.

週四的時候，魏天冰的妻子及另一人聯名用1000萬美元讓他獲得保釋，以紐約州薩格港一棟房產抵押。他將遭到軟禁。

Mr. Wey, who once registered his full name as a trademark according to his LinkedIn profile, was in the news this year as the details of his involvement with Hanna Bouveng, a Swedish model and former employee, emerged through a messy lawsuit. Ms. Bouveng accused Mr. Wey of sexual harassment and defamation, and in June, he was found liable by a jury in a Federal District Court in Manhattan. Ms. Bouveng was awarded $18 million.

魏天冰在領英(Linkedln)上的資料顯示，他曾用自己的全名註冊了一個商標。在今年的一起棘手訴訟中，隨着魏天冰與曾爲其僱員的瑞典模特漢娜·博文(Hanna Bouveng)的交往細節浮出水面，他出現在了新聞報道中。博文指控魏天冰對其進行性騷擾和誹謗。今年6月，駐曼哈頓的聯邦地區法院的陪審團判定魏天冰敗訴，博文有權獲得1800萬美元的賠償。