A 71-year-old Toronto man has been sentenced to 27 months in a U.S. federal prison for running a pump-and-dump scheme across 19 penny stocks, and ordered to hand over more than $9.6 million.
Julius Csurgo was sentenced on September 9 by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He pleaded guilty on May 27 to securities fraud involving 19 separate issuers, and will serve a year of supervised release after his prison term.
Prosecutors said Csurgo hid his ownership of the shares behind nominee entities and a Swiss corporation, Blacklight S.A., paid for promotional campaigns that were never disclosed to the investors being courted, and then sold his own holdings into the demand those campaigns created — the basic shape of a pump-and-dump, in which a thinly traded stock is talked up until buyers arrive and the promoter cashes out before the price falls back.
“Those who manipulate our markets and defraud investors will not escape justice,” the U.S. Attorney said in announcing the sentence, describing Csurgo as having “manipulated U.S. financial markets, exploited shell companies, and engaged in deceitful promotions to enrich himself at the expense of unsuspecting investors.”
The court ordered forfeiture of approximately $9,610,409.95. The release does not put a figure on what investors lost.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, September 9, 2026.
