Four co-conspirators who used Telegram app group chats to pump up the share prices of Australian stocks before dumping them at inflated prices were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, to be served by way of intensive corrections orders (ICOs) of between 14 months and 2 years at the Sydney District Court on Friday.

The four ringleaders of the ‘pump and dump’ scheme pleaded guilty in June 2025 to conspiracy to commit market rigging and dealing with the proceeds of crime (25-098MR).

• Larisa Quinlan was sentenced to an ICO for 1 year and 9 months. Ms Quinlan must additionally serve 160 hours of community service and comply with other strict additional conditions. She must also pay a fine of $8,015.
• Kurt Stuart was sentenced to an ICO for 2 years and in addition, must serve 200 hours of community service and comply with other strict additional conditions. He must pay a $22,270.11 fine.
• Emma Summer was sentenced to an ICO for 1 year and 10 months, must serve 160 hours of community service and comply with other strict additional conditions. She must pay a $16,029.50 fine.
• Syed Yusef was sentenced to an ICO for 14 months, must serve 120 hours of community service and comply with other strict additional conditions. Additionally, the Court made a pecuniary penalty order under s 116 of the Proceeds of Crimes Act 2002 (Cth) for Mr Yusuf to pay $13,464.89 to the Commonwealth of Australia.

All offenders must comply with the standard ICO conditions that they must not commit any offence and must submit to supervision by a community corrections officer.

ASIC Chair Joe Longo said, ‘Pump and dump trading isn’t just illegal, it damages trust in our financial markets, and people lose hard-earned money.

‘This group used social media to rig the market, artificially pump-up penny stocks, then dump them for quick profits - leaving everyday investors to wear the losses.

‘ASIC pursued this crime against the market to hold this group accountable, and to protect consumers from future schemes.

‘It is an ongoing priority for ASIC to target activity that undermines market integrity. We will continue to take decisive action against those who attempt to manipulate the market, and we urge all investors to report any suspicious activity.’

In delivering the sentencing judgment, Her Honour Judge Turner emphasised that duration is not the most significant feature of the offending, the criminality is essentially in the agreement to participate in criminal activity.

Her Honour also found each of the offenders were active participants in the conspiracy and motivated by financial gain.

This matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP) following a referral from ASIC.

Downloads

ASIC assets from messaging the public Telegram group chats.

(Click to enlarge)

Background

Market rigging is the illegal practice of intentionally manipulating the supply or demand of a financial product – like shares – to artificially push its price up or down. It involves creating a false or misleading impression of market activity, often through techniques like spreading false information, executing misleading trades, or colluding with others to fix prices or divide markets. Market rigging is considered a form of market manipulation and is treated as a white-collar crime under Australian law. Conspiracy to commit market rigging is an offence against s11.5(1) of the Criminal Code (Cth) and s1041B(1)(b) Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).

ASIC monitors trading on Australian licensed markets through its sophisticated real-time surveillance system and by integrating trade data with data from third parties to monitor pump and dump activity in Australian securities markets. This enables ASIC to see underlying clients, to identify networks of connected parties and to analyse trading patterns.

On 23 July 2024, charges were laid against the four defendants (24-161MR).

On 10 June 2025, the four defendants pleaded guilty to the charges (25-098MR).

• Mr Stuart and Ms Summer each pleaded guilty to one count of dealing with money or other property that was, and that they believed to be, proceeds of crime to the value of $10,000 or more.
• Ms Quinlan and Mr Yusuf each pleaded guilty to one count of dealing with money or other property that was, and that they believed to be, proceeds of crime to the value of $1,000 or more.
• Mr Yusuf also pleaded guilty to one count of dealing with money or other property that was proceeds of crime, reckless to that, to the value of $10,000 or more.

ASIC took a range of measures to support market integrity during the 2020-21 pandemic, including issuing public warnings about social media-led ‘pump and dump’ campaigns and posting directly on social media forums to warn members their actions may be in breach of the law (21-256MR).

In October 2023, ASIC warned investors ‘don’t get burned by hype’ in a series of advertisements run in cinemas before each screening of the film Dumb Money, which depicted the millions of retail investors who started buying shares in US company GameStop, causing share prices to surge from US$20 to US$500 in a few short weeks (Dumb Money: Don’t believe the hype).