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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%Boiler rooms (n=68) Boiler rooms (n=68): 46% 46%Pump and dump (n=139) Pump and dump (n=139): 42% 42%Insider trading (n=851) Insider trading (n=851): 29% 29%Undisclosed control blocks (n=93) Undisclosed control blocks (n=93): 23% 23%Price manipulation (n=311) Price manipulation (n=311): 19% 19%Spoofing (n=108) Spoofing (n=108): 19% 19%Unregistered distributions (n=157) Unregistered distributions (n=157): 18% 18%Paid stock promotion (n=68) Paid stock promotion (n=68): 18% 18%Matched orders (n=165) Matched orders (n=165): 11% 11%Wash trading (n=106) Wash trading (n=106): 9% 9%Front running (n=61) Front running (n=61): 3% 3%Misleading issuer disclosure (n=214) Misleading issuer disclosure (n=214): 1% 1%Rule 105 offering shorts (n=85) Rule 105 offering shorts (n=85): 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 2026-10-16

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
boiler-rooms683146
pump-and-dump1395842
insider-trading85124729
undisclosed-control-blocks932123
price-manipulation3115919
spoofing1082119
unregistered-distributions1572818
paid-stock-promotion681218
matched-orders1651811
wash-trading106109
front-running6123
misleading-issuer-disclosure21421
rule-105-offering-shorts8500

All charts · the full case library as JSON