SEC v. Beaufort Secs. Ltd. and Kyriacou. (pump and dump, 2019)

Judgment entered

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In July 2019 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced consent judgments in the Eastern District of New York against Beaufort Securities Ltd., a U.K. broker-dealer, and its investment manager Panayiotis Kyriacou, over manipulative trading in a microcap stock arranged with an undercover FBI agent. Both were enjoined and barred from penny stock offerings; additional remedies against Kyriacou were reserved. Related criminal prosecutions are noted.

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on July 29, 2019 as release LR-24546. The respondents named are Beaufort Securities Ltd. and Panayiotis Kyriacou (1 individual, 1 entity). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.

The SEC alleged that after an undercover agent described a business of pump-and-dump manipulation, the defendants opened nominee accounts for him and placed purchase orders in a microcap while understanding that an associate would simultaneously offer an equal number of shares. Beaufort is in liquidation. This library tags the matter as matched orders 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.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

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.

• Matched orders — 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. 2019-07-29 Litigation release published

Primary documents

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

• SEC litigation release

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 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.