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Criminal parallel share by technique

The likelihood that a manipulation action runs alongside a criminal prosecution varies sharply by technique. Schemes with identifiable individual victims and clear documentary evidence attract criminal attention far more often than order-book conduct, where intent must be inferred from data.

Share of actions with a parallel criminal proceeding, by techniqueA horizontal bar chart showing, for each manipulation technique, the percentage of enforcement actions in this library whose release references a parallel criminal matter. Sample size is given in each label.Share of actions referencing a criminal parallel (%)Ponzi schemes (n=474) Ponzi schemes (n=474): 49% 49%Pump and dump (n=122) Pump and dump (n=122): 48% 48%Boiler rooms (n=68) Boiler rooms (n=68): 46% 46%Matched orders (n=45) Matched orders (n=45): 40% 40%Price manipulation (n=155) Price manipulation (n=155): 37% 37%Benchmark submission rigging (n=34) Benchmark submission rigging (n=34): 35% 35%Insider trading (n=751) Insider trading (n=751): 33% 33%Undisclosed control blocks (n=91) Undisclosed control blocks (n=91): 23% 23%Spoofing (n=102) Spoofing (n=102): 20% 20%Wash trading (n=52) Wash trading (n=52): 19% 19%Unregistered distributions (n=157) Unregistered distributions (n=157): 18% 18%Paid stock promotion (n=66) Paid stock promotion (n=66): 18% 18%Rule 105 offering shorts (n=85) Rule 105 offering shorts (n=85): 0% 0%Naked short selling debate (n=35) Naked short selling debate (n=35): 0% 0%
The share of actions in each technique that reference a parallel criminal proceeding.

How this was calculated

A case is flagged as having a criminal parallel when the regulator’s release refers to the Department of Justice, a US Attorney, an indictment, a criminal complaint, or a guilty plea. This is a reference in the civil release, not an independent search of criminal dockets.

What this chart does not show

  • This measures what the civil release mentions. A criminal case brought later, or brought without a civil counterpart, will not appear.
  • Because DOJ coverage in this library is partial, the true criminal share is higher than shown for every technique.
  • Techniques with small samples produce unstable percentages. Sample sizes are printed on each bar for that reason.

Source

Computed from this site's own case library, which is compiled from the primary releases of the issuing regulators. Regenerated on every build, so the figures move as cases are added.

Regenerated 2026-10-07

Reuse

Free to reuse with attribution. The chart, the underlying figures and the CSV below are published under CC BY 4.0. Credit Market Manipulation and link back to this page. The regulator releases the data is compiled from are separately available at their own sources, listed on our sources page.

The data

Download CSV · the same figures are rendered below so the page is complete without downloading anything.

Criminal parallel share by technique — full dataset
techniqueactionswith_criminal_parallelshare_pct
ponzi-schemes47423249
pump-and-dump1225948
boiler-rooms683146
matched-orders451840
price-manipulation1555737
benchmark-submission-rigging341235
insider-trading75124833
undisclosed-control-blocks912123
spoofing1022020
wash-trading521019
unregistered-distributions1572818
paid-stock-promotion661218
rule-105-offering-shorts8500
naked-short-selling-debate3500

All charts · the full case library as JSON