A pair of British brothers are facing charges in the United States for allegedly defrauding investors out of more than 1.2 m US dollars (£745,000) through a bogus stock scheme.Twins Alexander and Thomas Hunter were just 16 years old when they devised the "elaborate" online scam which fooled around 75,000 people, according to US officials.
In 2007 the brothers, reportedly from Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, are alleged to have invented a fictitious "stock picking robot" and claimed on a series of websites that the highly sophisticated computer trading programme could identify stocks that were poised to rocket in value.
They then targeted thousands of unsuspecting investors, mainly in the US, selling them "home versions" of the bogus software - named Marl - and annual subscription to a newsletter that listed the programme's stock recommendations, it is said.
However, the stocks were not generated by any technical analysis and were in fact those companies who were paying the brothers to promote, according to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who has brought the civil action.
Legal papers filed in a New York federal court claimed investors paid 47 US dollars for newsletters listing Marl's stock picks and 97 US dollars for the home software. Read More
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