Charges laid in alleged Telegram ‘pump and dump’ conspiracy following ASIC investigation (ASIC, 2024)

Judgment entered

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In July 2024 ASIC announced charges against Syed Yusuf, Larissa Quinlan, Emma Summer and Kurt Stuart over an alleged Telegram group that promoted penny stocks and sold into the buying. All four pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit market rigging and were sentenced in the Sydney District Court on December 19, 2025 to imprisonment served as intensive corrections orders of 14 months to 2 years, with fines or a pecuniary penalty order.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

the Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced this matter on July 23, 2024 as release 24-161MR. The respondents named are Syed Yusuf, Larissa Quinlan, Emma Summer and Kurt Stuart (4 individuals, 0 entities).

ASIC alleges the four formed a private Telegram group, chose penny stocks, and announced them to a public group called the ASX Pump and Dump Group, then sold into the buying that followed; the release describes nine announcements over three weeks in September 2021. The prosecution is brought by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions after an ASIC referral. This library tags the matter as chat group pumps and pump and dump.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

Outcome. ASIC release 25-098MR reports guilty pleas from all four defendants, made at a Sydney court appearance, to market-rigging conspiracy and to handling proceeds of crime; the release's later updates show sentencing hearings set for late 2025. ASIC release 25-315MR (December 22, 2025) reports that the four were convicted and sentenced in the Sydney District Court on the preceding Friday, December 19, 2025, by Judge Turner. Quinlan received an intensive corrections order (a custodial term served in the community) of 1 year 9 months, 160 hours of community service and an $8,015 fine. Stuart received 2 years, 200 hours and a $22,270.11 fine. Summer received 1 year 10 months, 160 hours and a $16,029.50 fine. Yusuf received 14 months, 120 hours and a pecuniary penalty order of $13,464.89 to the Commonwealth. The judge said the offending lay mainly in the agreement to take part. These are criminal convictions on guilty pleas; the individual sentence lengths differ, so no single sentence figure is stored, and the amounts are in Australian dollars, so they are not stored as USD.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Chat group pumps — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2024-07-23 ASIC media release
2. 2025-06-10 ASIC reports guilty pleas by all four defendants (release 25-098MR)
3. 2025-12-19 Four defendants sentenced in the Sydney District Court (ASIC release 25-315MR)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release
• ASIC release 25-098MR (guilty pleas)
• ASIC release 25-315MR (sentencing)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.