Looks like the Securities Exchange Commission has finally sniffed out the stink bomb called Sniffex, a worthless and utterly useless product being sold by Irving-based Homeland Safety International in order to make a whole lotta something out of a whole buncha nuthink. Says HSI of the product that looks like something fabricated from things you might find in a Radio Shack dumpster: "It is a pocket sized, hand held device that detects numerous types of explosives on the basis of the presence of nitrous oxide ions." To which the SEC says, Nuh-unh. Which is the least of HSI's problems.
On Tuesday in federal court in Dallas, the SEC filed suit against HSI's Mark Lindberg, Petar Mihaylov, Yuri Markov, Paul Johnson, and Nicholas Klausgaard and Ilona Klausgaard. The feds allege that the men took worthless stock valued at around 80 cents and used Sniffex to pump up the price tag to around $6 a share. The result? Thirty-two-million worth of worthless stock and what Motley Fool calls "one of the great pump and dumps of our generation." It certainly is a terrific story that stretches from Irving and Coppell to Bulgaria and Denmark. And to think, these guys called "bullshit" three years back -- around the same time the U.S. Navy bought a few of the useless trinkets for, oh, 50,000 well-spent dollars. --Robert Wilonsky
