The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday announced charges against eight financial influencers for defrauding them of nearly $100 million by manipulating exchange-traded stocks on social media platforms Twitter and Discord.

Joseph Sansone, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division's Market Abuse Division, said the defendants used social media to amass a large number of novice investors and then repeatedly provided these fans with misinformation, resulting in illegal profits of about $100 million.

The seven defendants charged with securities fraud are Perry Matlock, Edward Constantin, ThomasCooperman, Gary Deel, Mitchell Hennessey and Stefan Hrvatin, John Rybarczyk.

Specifically, the SEC complaint alleges that the seven individuals allegedly bought certain stocks and then encouraged their large number of followers on social media to buy those selected stocks by Posting price targets or saying they were buying, holding, or adding to their stock positions. However, when the stock price and/or trading volume of the advertised securities rose, the seven regularly sold their shares without ever disclosing their plans to sell the securities at the time of the promotion.

In addition, the complaint alleges that Daniel Knight (@DipDeity) aided and abetted this fraudulent scheme, in addition to co-hosting a podcast in which he promoted many of these defendants as trading experts and provided a forum for their manipulative statements.

The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions against eight defendants, requiring them to turn over ill-obtained gains, pay prepaid interest and civil penalties, and a penny stock ban against Stefan Hrvatin.