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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says that offshore records maintained by West Vancouver's Frederick Sharp showing thousands of share transactions and secret communications should be admissible at the upcoming trial of his associates. The records show that Mr. Sharp and others were behind a seven-year international scheme to illegally sell millions of shares on the U.S. markets, the SEC contends. The authenticity of the records is supported by a sworn statement by a technician who set up Mr. Sharp's system.

The debate over the offshore records comes as part of a case in which the SEC claims that Mr. Sharp facilitated the illegal sale of as much as $1-billion worth of shares in several U.S. listings. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Mr. Sharp concealed share positions and ran a clandestine communications network, according to the SEC. His network allowed many others to run pump-and-dumps and secretly unload their shares, the SEC claims.

With the trial in the case approaching, one of the Vancouver-area defendants, Jackson Friesen, has been trying to have Mr. Sharp's offshore records declared inadmissable at trial. The SEC claims that Mr. Friesen was one of those who used Mr. Sharp's system, selling shares during a pump-and-dump on the OTC Markets. Mr. Friesen realized $9-million in gains from that pump-and-dump, the SEC says.

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