>I'm curious about which stocks were actually involved. I'm also curious how much they profited on this scheme, and how much capital they had to amass to get it

>I'm curious about which stocks were actually involved. I'm also curious how much they profited on this scheme, and how much capital they had to amass to get it started. The clue is in the very extract you posted.... "certain publicly traded companies that were traded on the over-the-counter (“OTC”) market in the United States" OTC shares are the bottom of the barrel shares, too illiquid to be dealt with via the exchanges and so traded via market makers instead. Which then answers your second question. With illiquid shares you don't need much capital or to make much effort to make a profit in questionable ways. I haven't read the detail, but I imagine they were basically running a coordinated pump & dump.