Pro Elite
Pro Elite Inc., an organizer and promoter of mixed martial arts matches, was one stock prosecutors allege Homm manipulated. In September 2006, Homm had Absolute Capital funds buy $10 million worth of shares and warrants issued by the company in a private offering.
Pro Elite also issued shares to Hunter World that were later sold to Absolute Capital’s funds for inflated prices, according to the prosecutors.
That October, Pro Elite initially traded for 10 cents a share on the Pink Sheets. Through cross trading between Homm’s hedge funds, the price of the shares was driven to as high as $12 in April 2007. Based on the inflated share price, one of Homm’s hedge funds reported an unrealized gain of $25 million from its investments in Pro Elite, according to prosecutors.
Swiss Account
Homm’s co-owned broker-dealer made $6.4 million from selling its Pro Elite shares at an inflated price in May of 2007 to an Absolute Capital fund, with $4 million of it wired to Homm’s Swiss account, according to U.S. prosecutors.
The cross trading of Pro Elite shares continued into September 2007 and Homm’s broker-dealer made about $14.2 million from selling its shares to the Absolute Capital hedge funds as well as about $1.1 million from commissions on the trades it executed in the stock.
Homm flew to Panama in 2007 using an Irish passport under the name Colin Trainor, according to the affidavit, which cites an interview with a German bounty hunter published in the Financial Times Deutschland last year. The FBI found a “strong resemblance” between Homm’s picture in his German passport and a picture of Trainor in the Irish passport.
The German, who had planned his departure with “Prussian precision,” intended to eventually go to Colombia when he fled Mallorca, according to his book.
Moving Cash