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Benjamin Wey has described himself as a “leading Wall Street American financier” who helped Chinese companies sell shares in the United States.
魏天冰（Benjamin Wey，音）自称是“华尔街美国金融家中的佼佼者”，曾帮助中国公司在美国出售股份。
Federal prosecutors call him something else: a “master of manipulation” who reaped tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits. The F.B.I. arrested Mr. Wey at his Manhattan home on Thursday and charged him with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering in an eight-count indictment unsealed in a federal court in Manhattan.
但联邦检察官称他是“欺诈大师”，赚取的非法利润以千万美元计。本周四，联邦调查局(FBI)在其曼哈顿的家中逮捕了魏天冰，指控他进行证券欺诈、汇款欺诈、共谋和洗钱。驻曼哈顿的一家联邦法院公布的起诉书中包含对他的八项指控。
By Thursday afternoon Mr. Wey was before a judge in federal court in Manhattan for the second time this year. In June, he was found liable of sexual harassment and defamation in a trial of a lawsuit that was salacious fodder for tabloid newspapers.
周四下午，魏天冰出现在曼哈顿联邦法院的法官面前。这已经是今年以来第二次了。6月时，他在一起性骚扰和诽谤案件中被判败诉。那起诉讼为小报提供了不少香艳素材。
Mr. Wey, the founder of the Wall Street advisory firm New York Global Group, is now accused of fraudulently taking Chinese companies public in the United States through reverse mergers — a process that involved buying the shell of an American company that had been publicly listed, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Wey used family members to help build secret ownership positions in the companies he took public and to manipulate their shares to reap tens of millions of dollars.
魏天冰是华尔街咨询公司纽约国际集团(New York Global Group)的创始人。周四启封的起诉书称，他现被指控通过欺诈性的反向并购活动，让中国公司在美国上市。他进行的反向并购操作过程涉及对已经上市的美国公司的壳进行收购。检察官声称，魏天冰通过家庭成员，秘密在他经手上市的公司中占据份额，并且操纵这些公司的股价，从中获取了数千万美元。
Together with his banker, Seref Dogan Erbek, who is based in Geneva, Mr. Wey falsified the sales, volume, demand and price of the shares of the companies they took public, according to the charges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Manhattan also charged Mr. Erbek, who remains at large.
帮魏天冰处理业务的银行业高管塞利弗·多甘·埃尔贝克(Seref Dogan Erbek)住在日内瓦。起诉书称，两人伪造了经手上市的公司股票的销售额、数量、需求和价格。美国联邦调查局和驻曼哈顿的联邦检察官也对埃尔贝克提起了指控，此人仍未归案。
“Ben Wey fashioned himself a master of industry, but as alleged, he was merely a master of manipulation,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Thursday, adding that Mr. Wey “refused to let the securities laws or the rules of fair marketplace get in the way of his dishonest scheme.”
“魏天冰自称是行内高手，但就像起诉书说的那样，他只不过是个欺诈大师，”驻曼哈顿的联邦检察官普里特·巴拉拉(Preet Bharara)在周四的声明中说。“他罔顾证券法和公平的市场规则，决意行骗。”
In a separate civil complaint filed on Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Wey and Mr. Erbek of fraud. The S.E.C. also accused Mr. Wey’s wife, Michaela Wey, and his sister Tianyi Wei, as well as two lawyers, Robert Newman and William Uchimoto, of fraud.
本周四，在另一起民事诉讼中，美国证券交易委员会（Securities and Exchange Commission，简称SEC）指控魏天冰和埃尔贝克有欺诈行为。SEC还一同指控了魏天冰的妻子麦克拉·魏(Michaela Wey)、他的姊妹魏天怡（音），以及两名律师罗伯特·纽曼(Robert Newman)和威廉·内本(William Uchimoto)有欺诈行为。
“Mr. Wey denies the charges against him and looks forward to clearing his name,” David Siegal, Mr. Wey’s lawyer, said in an email.
“魏先生否认对他的指控，并期待还他清白。”魏天冰的律师戴维·西格尔(David Siegal)在接受采访的电子邮件中表示。
The F.B.I. first set its sights on Mr. Wey in 2012, when it raided his offices on Wall Street and searched his home. At the time, reverse mergers had come under regulatory scrutiny for losing investors billions of dollars after some companies were accused of exaggerating their assets and accounting fraud.
联邦调查局最初将目光投向魏天冰是在2012年，当时搜索了他在华尔街的办公室，以及他的家。他的反向收购活动彼时已经受到了监管机构的审视，因为有人指责一些公司夸大了资产信息，进行会计造假，导致投资者损失了数十亿美元。
But Mr. Wey’s scheme went beyond fraudulent accounting, according to prosecutors. Between 2007 and 2011 Mr. Wey identified Chinese companies that wanted to raise money in the United States and offered his firm’s services in facilitating reverse mergers. Mr. Wey would merge the Chinese companies with shell companies, in which he had a significant stake through family members including his wife and his sister. These companies included Deer Consumer Products, a maker of kitchen appliances, and CleanTech Innovations, a windmill maker, according to the indictment.
不过检察部门表示，魏天冰不只存在会计欺诈行为。在2007年到2011年间，魏天冰找到希望在美国募集资金的中国企业，表示自己的公司愿意协助反向并购。魏天冰把中国企业与壳公司合并，并通过妻子、姊妹这样的家庭成员持有壳公司的大量股份。起诉书显示，这些公司包括厨房用具生产商德尔电器(Deer Consumer Products)和风机生产商新兴佳集团(CleanTech Innovations)。
After the reverse mergers, Mr. Wey would gift shares in the companies to friends, family members, employees and business associates to artificially inflate the number of shareholders to create the impression that the company was mature enough to move from over-the-counter trading to the Nasdaq stock market.
在进行反向收购后，魏天冰会将公司股份赠予朋友、家人、员工及商业伙伴，人为增加股东人数，制造公司已经充分发展足以从场外交易进入纳斯达克股市的假象。
With Mr. Erbek’s help, Mr. Wey would then manipulate the share price of the companies he took public by trading between various family accounts, according to the indictment. At one point, Mr. Wey was so explicit in his instructions to manipulate the share price of CleanTech that Mr. Erbek intervened to tell him to be less blatant, court filings on Thursday showed. In an email to Mr. Wey, Mr. Erbek wrote, “Obviously, we need to be careful to give such orders/make such comments. I may explain it over the phone; please call me if you have time.”
起诉书显示，在埃尔贝克的帮助下，魏天冰后来通过各个家庭成员账户相互交易的方式操控由他推动上市的公司的股价。周四公布的法庭文件显示，魏天冰曾非常直白地指示操控新兴佳的股价，导致埃尔贝克插手，让他不要那么高调。在给魏天冰的一封邮件中，埃尔贝克写道，“显然，我们在做出此类指示或评论时要小心。我可以在电话中解释这个问题；请在空闲时候打给我。”
Mr. Wey, who sometimes spells his last name Wei, also caused shares in certain companies to go up by manipulating trades between the accounts of family members, the indictment says. In one instance outlined by prosecutors, after doing this he turned around and promoted a sudden increase in price to prospective investors in the company. Afterward, he sold the shares in each account at the inflated price, generating millions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors.
魏天冰有时会将自己的姓氏拼写为Wei。起诉书指控，他还通过家庭成员账户之间的交易哄抬某些公司的股价。在检察官列举的一个例子中，他在这之后不断运作，使得这家公司潜在的投资者面对股价突然升高的情况。联邦检察官透露，后来，他在哄抬后的价位上将每个账户上的股份出售，获利数百万美元。
The proceeds from such trades went into the bank accounts of relatives in places like Hong Kong and Switzerland, prosecutors said. Later, the money would be repatriated to the United States. In one instance, $20 million in cash was transferred from a Hong Kong account in his sister’s name to an account in the United States controlled by Mr. Wey and his wife. The money was used for lavish purchases like a Ritz-Carlton Hotel apartment in Battery Park in New York, federal prosecutors said. These fund transfers were typically reported on the tax returns under Ms. Wey’s name as untaxable gifts from a foreign person, prosecutors said.
检察官表示，此类交易的收益进入了魏天冰的亲属在香港和瑞士等地开设的银行账户。之后，这些钱会被转回美国。在一个例子中，2000万美元的资金从以他姊妹的名义在香港开设的账户转到了美国的一个由魏天冰夫妇掌控的账户中。联邦检察官表示，他们肆意挥霍这些钱，比如购买了纽约炮台公园丽思卡尔顿酒店(Ritz-Carlton Hotel)的一套公寓。检察官称，在魏天冰的纳税申报表上，他们通常将这类资金转移登记为境外人士赠予的不需缴税的礼物。
On Thursday, Mr. Wey was released on a $10 million bond co-signed by his wife and another person, and secured by equity in a Sag Harbor, N.Y., house. He will be subject to home detention.
周四的时候，魏天冰的妻子及另一人联名用1000万美元让他获得保释，以纽约州萨格港一栋房产抵押。他将遭到软禁。
Mr. Wey, who once registered his full name as a trademark according to his LinkedIn profile, was in the news this year as the details of his involvement with Hanna Bouveng, a Swedish model and former employee, emerged through a messy lawsuit. Ms. Bouveng accused Mr. Wey of sexual harassment and defamation, and in June, he was found liable by a jury in a Federal District Court in Manhattan. Ms. Bouveng was awarded $18 million.
魏天冰在领英(Linkedln)上的资料显示，他曾用自己的全名注册了一个商标。在今年的一起棘手诉讼中，随着魏天冰与曾为其雇员的瑞典模特汉娜·博文(Hanna Bouveng)的交往细节浮出水面，他出现在了新闻报道中。博文指控魏天冰对其进行性骚扰和诽谤。今年6月，驻曼哈顿的联邦地区法院的陪审团判定魏天冰败诉，博文有权获得1800万美元的赔偿。
