Anson Funds and Andrew Left – Insider Trading & The Secret Partnership

If you have information on Anson Funds illegal practices send it to: [email protected]

Andrew Left was a big name in the short-selling world for many years. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Left he portrayed himself as a broken man, living in fear for his freedom. This is a far cry from his earlier practice of parading himself around as a white knight of the markets, gallantly exposing corporate fraud and serving as the champion of the retail investor. Recent revelations, however, have shown him to be quite the opposite: A criminal and a con man who destroyed good companies for profit, conspiring with his business partner, Moez Kassam, of Anson Funds.

The problem for Andrew left is that the DOJ and SEC already know he is guilty. They have everything they need to throw the book at him.

Moez Kassam of Anson Funds has been doing business with Left for years, with Left tipping off Moez before the release of any reports, both positive and negative. Sources on Bay Street have told us that Anson used to run money for Left and that they also had a balance sheet arrangement, though we have not been able to independently confirm this with documented evidence.

Our investigation continues, and we have been fortunate enough to have developed a former Anson Funds source who still has some insider access to vet and confirm intelligence and which is why the new information we have received below on Tilray is so interesting.

How Insider Tilray Trading Came to Haunt Moez

Moez was an original investor in Tilray. He got the second largest allocation when the stock went public, which we have to give it to him was a good call.

The stock started trading on July 19, 2018. Less than a month later, in the afternoon of August 15,  Andrew Left published a positive report on Tilray: https://citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Tilray-Next-in-line-in-a-Budding-Cannabis-Industry.pdf

Left has since scrubbed this report from his website in an attempt to remove any proof of his illegal insider trading. Fortunately for readers and regulators, the Wayback Machine captured the report, which you can read here: https://web.archive.org/web/20201109043426/https://citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Tilray-Next-in-line-in-a-Budding-Cannabis-Industry.pdf

Immediately after Left published his Tilray report, the market jumped on it. By early afternoon, Marketwatch reported that the stock was up over 21% because of Left’s report and his large following: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pot-company-tilray-stock-on-rampage-soars-21-2018-08-15

The Tilary chart tells its own story:  https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TLRY/history?period1=1531958400&period2=1709164800&interval=1d&filter=history&frequency=1d&includeAdjustedClose=true

What the casual observer does not know, however, is that Left tipped off Moez hours before his report came out, and Moez bought 150,000+ shares of Tilray in the market just hours before the report went live. This is a clear violation of insider trading rules.

Left’s call and Moez purchase of Tilray stock happened at the low point for the stock, and just before it started its huge run. Anson made an illegal profit off this inside information, and not for the first time.

This is a relatively easy one for regulators. You need to look at Anson Funds trading records in Tilray and see where and when they purchased Tilray shares on the 15^th of August 2018. The purchase volume was rumored to be somewhat north of 150,000 shares, and the trade will have taken place a few hours before the report came out. (We will update with more information as it comes in).

But the story gets better or worse for Moez, depending on how you look at it.

Tilray then started flying higher and higher. Now we don’t know when Moez decided to sell his position, but it is believed to be in the $40 to $50 range. However, he not only sold the 130k+ shares he recently bought off Left’s illegal tipoff, but he got greedy and went naked short the stock in a huge way, north of 1.5 million shares.

Moez was convinced the stock was going to fall, but it didn’t. It kept climbing. To get out of this situation, Moez Kassam then apparently approached the CEO of Tilray and tried to persuade him to do a raise. He said, “You’re never going to see this price again. I’ll be the lead buyer in your round. You can put me in for a big number and lets get this going. The price is so inflated here.”

The Tilray CEO knew that Moez was short, so he told him “no”. Moez Kassam made money on the way up, but at this point he was also attempting to make big money on the way down. We have heard from various sources that Moez Kassam believed he could net a $10-million+ profit from this trade.

Things started to spiral out of control for Moez, who now had to contend with the CEO of Tilray, who was onto his game and not willing to play ball. The stock rallied further, jumping from $100 to $160 in a single day.

This became an existential crisis for the firm, and one they only barely survived. Regulators should be speaking to their bankers about how they actually managed to pull this off. A good starting point would be determining who had the borrow? (Here is a tip – no one did. Not Anson nor the banks!)

Update on SEC/DOJ & Legal Fees

What we are hearing from a source close to Moez is that the legal bills are becoming crippling, but he has to continue paying them as it is existential to the firm. The majority of fees are going to U.S. lawyers who are stalling the SEC and DOJ (expensive lawyers can do this) and trying to drag out the investigation to enable Anson to continue doing business in the meantime. We have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Anson’s legal fees are north of $5 million a month.

A strange thing we heard is that at a recent party at his house he was showing people his legal bills and how much he was spending on this whole thing and pretending to roll cigarettes with them. While Moez likes to pretend this situation is all a big joke, we doubt his unitholders find it as amusing to see all the money pouring out of the fund to fight legal battles.

Moez Kassam Masterplan if it all goes wrong

The walls are closing in on Anson, and Moez knows it. This is the reason he has been moving funds overseas. His houses are mortgaged, and he really has very few assets in the country that he owns outright.

Like everyone who fits his psychological profile as a corporate sociopath, Moez is giving himself escape options. His reasoning is likely that if the SEC/DOJ charges end up being light-weight, he will stick around, pay off the fines and try to continue. If they are crushing charges, he will run and live off all the loot that has been moved abroad, either to Dubai or Bali. But to build up his nest egg, he needs to stall the regulatory/justice investigations; hence, the huge legal investment.

Anson Funds performance figures for 2023:

Another year passes, and Anson reported large annual profits. However, these numbers are not to be believed. First of all, we believe they are fake. Secondly, Anson’s description that the outperformance came from the Fund’s activist positions is a lie – performance came from illegal market trading, including another big profit the Fund made on its manipulation of the Adani Group of companies in partnership with Nate Anderson of Hindenburg Research. We believe this was their big trade of the year. We imagine Adani is also aware of Anson’s involvement in the hit piece, as well. Anson has worked with Hindenburg for years, with Moez famously saying that he created Hindenburg.

Moes Kassam and Good Press:

With all of the negative things surrounding Anson Funds, casual observers and unitholders may be wondering why it is that they can only see positive things about the company. This is because Anson Funds has hired one of the most connected PR/reputation management firms on the planet.

This firm has the ability to get stories placed almost anywhere and negative stories pulled before they go to press. But They cost and big $$, too. The outfit has dominated the search engines with placed media pieces on Moez. This is the real power of money – cleaning up a dirty reputation.

Here are some older pieces which are important reading if you wish to get a better understanding of Anson Funds criminal tactics and how they destroy companies for profit.

Anson Funds and the Great Con (December 21, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/anson-funds/

Anson Funds and Murchison’s Dirty Partnership – Another Lawsuit: Nano Dimension (November 4, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/anson-funds-and-murchisons-dirty-partnership-another-lawsuit-nano-dimension

Anson Funds Fined By SEC – Just The Beginning (October 23, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/anson-funds-fined-by-sec-just-the-beginning/

Was Anson Funds Involved In The Hindenburg Report On The Adani Group (August 4, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/anson-funds-implicated-in-hindenburgs-adani-group/

Moez Kassam & Anson Funds: The Big Secret (March 18, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/moez-kassam-anson-funds-the-big-secret/

Moez Kassam & Anson Funds Part IV: Selling Everyone Out (March 10, 2023)
https://marketfrauds.to/moez-kassam-anson-funds-part-iv-selling-everyone-out/

How Anson Funds Used Seeking Alpha to Crush Companies (December 11, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/how-anson-funds-used-seeking-alpha-to-crush-companies/

New Lawsuit Against Anson Funds – Sentia Wellness (November 1, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/new-lawsuit-against-anson-funds-sentia-wellness/

Anatomy of an Anson Funds Short & Distort Attack: Recon Africa (May 17, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/anatomy-of-an-anson-funds-short-distort-attack-recon-africa/

Moez Kassam & Anson Funds: Panic as DOJ Widens Investigation (March 8, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/moez-kassam-anson-funds-panic-as-doj-widens-investigation/

GENIUS Brands – The Story Anson Funds Doesn’t Want You To Read (January 19, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/genius-brands-the-story-anson-funds-doesnt-want-you-to-read/

Augenbaum v. Anson Investments Master Fund LP (January 18, 2022)
https://marketfrauds.to/augenbaum-v-anson-investments-master-fund-lp-et-al/

Lawsuits against Anson Funds (December 17, 2021)
https://marketfrauds.to/lawsuits-against-anson-funds/

DoJ Targets Anson Funds for Illegal Short-Selling, Fraud and Insider Trading (December 15, 2021)
https://marketfrauds.to/doj-targets-anson-funds-for-illegal-short-selling-fraud-and-insider-trading/

Intelligence Briefing: Anson Funds Active Cyber Crime (August 17, 2021)
https://marketfrauds.to/intelligence-briefing-anson-funds-active-cyber-crime/

Moez Kassam & Anson Funds Part II: Rotten To The Core (June 18, 2021)
https://marketfrauds.to/moez-kassam-anson-funds-part-ii-rotten-to-the-core/

Moez Kassam and Anson Funds: A Tale of Corruption, Greed, and Failure (February 10, 2021)
https://marketfrauds.to/moez-kassam-and-anson-funds-a-tale-of-corruption-greed-and-failure/