On January 25, 2024, the Miami Herald published an article entitled “Russia investor made millions off insider trading tied to Trump Media, court docs say” (the “Article”).
That headline got my attention, and only a paragraph into the article I discovered that this “Russian insider trading” villain was none other than Miami resident Anton Postolnikov, who owns Paxum Bank in Dominica. So, I decided to read and analyze what I could find about this supposed “insider trading” case to see if the Article’s allegations about Mr. Postolnikov were accurate. I learned quite the opposite.
The Miami Herald Article’s allegations about Mr. Postolnikov, are related to a 2022 stock investment that he made in Digital World Acquisition Group (DWAC), a company formed under what is known as a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company). In 2022, DWAC became the subject of two investigations, by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) (collectively, the “Investigations”). The Investigations were opened by the DOJ and SEC to determine whether stock trades conducted by DWAC’s early investors, who purchased some or all their stock before the DWAC’s public listing in the NASDAQ exchange, were culpable of any civil or criminal “insider trading” violations.
The investigations led to June 2023 DOJ grand jury indictments in the Southern District of New York against three (3) individuals: Michael Shvartsman, Gerald Shvartsman, and Bruce Garelick. Separate legal action against the same individuals was initiated by the SEC in June 2023 for essentially the same insider trading.
I read and analyzed the DOJ indictment and the SEC lawsuit, but didn’t see any charges of wrongdoing by Anton Postolnikov – no charges, no accusations of wrongdoing, no implication of future charges. As I said, the headline of the Article got my attention, but it simply wasn’t a truthful statement.
So why did the Miami Herald reporter make such wild accusations about Mr. Postolnikov? Could it be that the word “Trump” appears in some of the court documents? It looks like the Miami Herald is off to the races when it comes to 2024 election-year tabloid journalism.
An interesting article. I appreciate this attempt at “checking,” verifying, information placed in the public domain and printing an alternative view. This is uncommon in Dominica.