SEC v. Francis Biller, et al. (pump and dump, 2022)

Settled

Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In March 2022 the SEC charged five defendants, including Francis Biller, over a Colombian call-center pump-and-dump scheme. Biller and three others consented to judgments, and on September 30, 2026 the court entered a default judgment against Raymond Dove for about $4.6 million in disgorgement, interest and penalties. Money terms for the consent judgments of Biller, Alvarez and Plaizier were not read.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-25348
Date filed	2022-03-17
Date resolved	2026-09-30
Court	U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
Status	settled
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Bars imposed	penny stock bar (Dove)
Defendants	Chester Alvarez (individual) ; Francis Biller (individual) ; Raymond Dove (individual) ; Troy Gran-Brooks (individual) ; Justin Plaizier (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.9(a)(2) ; Securities Act s.17(a) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Pump and dump , Boiler rooms

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
Alleged gain: —

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 March 17, 2022 as release LR-25348. The respondents named are Chester Alvarez, Francis Biller, Raymond Dove, Troy Gran-Brooks and Justin Plaizier (5 individuals, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.

The complaint alleged that the defendants ran call centres posing as investment firms with fake names, websites and spoofed phone numbers, and were paid about $10 million to promote thinly traded stocks. Alvarez is also charged under Exchange Act Section 9(a)(2). The release uses spoofing to mean disguised phone numbers, not order spoofing in the market, so this library does not tag it as spoofing. This library tags the matter as pump and dump and boiler rooms.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

Outcome. The Eastern District of New York's memorandum and order of September 30, 2026 states that Biller, Plaizier, Gran-Brooks and Alvarez had each waived service and entered consent judgments, and it grants the SEC's motion for default judgment against the fifth defendant, Raymond Dove. For Dove it imposes injunctions and a penny stock bar and orders disgorgement of $1,803,543, prejudgment interest of $1,119,903 and a penalty of $1,655,157. For co-defendant Troy Gran-Brooks, a consent final judgment of January 24, 2025 orders $584,968 in disgorgement and $253,133 in interest. We did not read the consent judgments for Biller, Alvarez or Plaizier, so no money is recorded in the structured fields. The court denied the SEC's motion against the corporate relief defendant Shredderz without prejudice and directed the SEC to say by October 7, 2026 how it would proceed, or the case would be closed on October 13, 2026.

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.

Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
Boiler rooms — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2022-03-17 Litigation release published
2025-01-24 Consent final judgment as to Troy Gran-Brooks
2026-09-30 Default judgment against Raymond Dove; court notes the other four defendants consented

Primary documents

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

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.

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

Action	Agency	Filed	Technique	Penalty	Status
SEC v. Joseph R. Earle Jr, Barry D. Reagh, William Clayton, Francis T. Dudley, Steven E. Bryant, Upper Street Marketing, Inc. and Project Growth International, Inc. (boiler rooms, 2022)	SEC	2022-12-05	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	—	filed
SEC v. Matthew Nicosia, William Reninger, Fabrizio Di Carlo, and Ronald Touchard (boiler rooms, 2022)	SEC	2022-09-28	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	$453k	settled
SEC v. Talman Harris and Victor Alfaya (boiler rooms, 2019)	SEC	2019-06-28	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	$500k	judgment
SEC v. Jason McDiarmid, et al. (boiler rooms, 2017)	SEC	2017-09-29	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	$3.3m	judgment
SEC v. Marcus A. Luna, et al. (boiler rooms, 2016)	SEC	2016-09-30	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	$15k	judgment
SEC v. Jason A. Wallace (boiler rooms, 2016)	SEC	2016-09-27	Boiler Rooms , Pump And Dump	$435k	judgment

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.