The Microcap Fraud Task Force will investigate fraud in the issuance, marketing, and trading of microcap securities . These abuses frequently involve serial violators and organized syndicates that employ new media, especially websites and social media, to conduct fraudulent promotional campaigns and engage in manipulative trading strategies to amass ill-gotten gains, largely at the expense of less sophisticated investors. The principal goal of the Task Force will be to develop and implement long-term strategies for detecting and combating fraud in the microcap market, especially by targeting "gatekeepers," such as attorneys, auditors, broker-dealers, and transfer agents, and other significant participants, such as stock promoters and purveyors of shell companies.

The Microcap Fraud Task Force will build on the extensive and successful work of the Microcap Fraud Working Group - created in 2010 to bring together enforcement and examination staff with common interests in detecting and preventing microcap fraud - in amassing data, developing new approaches to investigations in this sector of the market, and forging relationships with criminal law enforcement authorities. The Task Force will not replace the Working Group but will differ from it in that it will consist of staff dedicated exclusively to investigation of participants in the microcap securities market. Elisha Frank, Assistant Regional Director in the Miami Regional Office, and Michael Paley, Assistant Regional Director in the New York Regional Office, will lead the Task Force.