Litigation Release No. 18231 / July 16, 2003

SEC v. Discover Capital Holdings Corp., et al., 03 Civ. 1496 (D.D.C., filed July 9, 2003)

Judge Freezes Assets of Four Additional Defendants in SEC Suit Against Million-Dollar Scam Targeting Retirees

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission on July 14, 2003 sought an order in D.C. Federal District court freezing assets of Eli Dinov, Ari Dinov, David Rubinov and Stronghold Associates, Inc., four of the six defendants named in the Commission's July 9, 2003 complaint. On July 14th, the Honorable Judge Rosemary M. Collyer froze approximately $350,000 in assets of the four defendants.

Judge Collyer's prior order, issued on July 9, 2003, froze $1.1 million of the assets of two of the defendants, Discover Capital Holdings Corp. and Indianapolis Securities, Inc. On Monday, in addition to freezing assets of the four other defendants, Judge Collyer released some of the assets of Indianapolis Securities to be used to pay commissions owed to certain employees and lifted the freeze with respect to $15,000 held in an account with Indianapolis Securities' clearing firm.

The Commission's complaint alleges that the defendants, Eli Dinov, his brother Ari Dinov, and David Rubinov used spam e-mail touts and misleading, high pressure sales calls to raise $1.1 million dollars through the sale of private placement shares of Uniondale, New York-based Discover Capital Holdings Corp., a company controlled by the individual defendants, through Discover's wholly-owned broker-dealer subsidiary, Indianapolis Securities, Inc.

For additional information, see Litigation Release 18222.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr18231.h