‘Pump and dump’ stock trader a simple, damaged Perth gardener, court hears


A man who artificially inflated stock prices before selling them at higher prices was a simple gardener desperate for the approval of others, a Melbourne court has heard.

Gabriel Govinda, known online as ‘Fibonarchery,’ has pleaded guilty to 23 charges of manipulation of listed stocks on the Australian Securities Exchange and 19 charges of illegal dissemination of information.

He is the first person in Australia to have been convicted over what is known as a “pump and dump” scheme, where an individual increases a share price before selling the stock at the higher price.

In the County Court of Victoria on Friday Govinda’s lawyer, Philip Dunn KC, said his client was a specialist in rose and hedge pruning who, without any qualifications in commerce or trading, “became obsessed by the market” and developed a skill in “picking penny dreadful stocks.”

Camera IconGabriel Govinda has pleaded guilty to manipulating stock prices and selling them at a higher price. NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw Credit: News Corp Australia

“You are dealing with a damaged gardener who became an amateur stock picker,” Mr Dunn said in court on Friday.

Prosecutors said from September 2014 to July 2015, Govinda used 13 different share trading accounts held in the name of friends and relatives in order to alter the share price of 20 listed stocks.

They said Govinda would spread information regarding his ‘washed’ trades and ‘dummy’ bids on HotCopper, a stock market online chat forum.

Mr Dunn said Govinda, who grew up in Perth, has a strong history of mental illness and depression, for which he has been treated with magnetic coils around his head, ketamine infusions and electroconvulsive therapy.

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)
Camera IconPhilip Dunn KC told the court that Gabriel Govinda was a Perth gardener who became obsessed with the stock market, not a “cool” criminal. Credit: Supplied

He said his client’s online name, Fibonarchery, was a nod to his fixation with numbers.

“There are people who believe numbers and sequences have a mystical rhythm,” Mr Dunn said.

Fibonacci was a 13th-century mathematician, who introduced the ‘Fibonacci sequence,’ in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, into western mathematics.

But prosecutors said Govinda’s offending, for which the maximum penalty is 10 years prison and / or $765,000 fine on each charge, was “highly sophisticated.”

“The integrity of the market very much remains a relevant current issue,” they said.

Judge Stewart Bayles said the “starting point” in terms of sentencing would be a term of imprisonment, but did not rule out a Recognizance Order.

The matter was adjourned to a date in the new year, yet to be determined.



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