Anson Fund Case Study
The Investigator | JANUARY 1, 2015
• The Anson Group of Funds is an intricate web of companies and investment funds that has offices or connections in Canada, the Cayman Islands and South Africa. These entities are co-owned by Bruce Winson and several of his close associates.
• The Anson Group Canada is led by Moez Kassam, Adam Spears and Jay Lubinsky and has Sunny Puri as one of its investment managers, along with several others. Sunny Puri has been an outspoken critic of Terra Tech and committed libel in an open letter to the Clark County Commissioner in Nevada as part of a deliberate effort to deny Terra Tech an operating license in that county.
• Frigate Ventures, an affiliate of Anson funds, had an employee in 2007 named Jonathan Daws. Bruce Winson and Jonathan Daws appeared on a list of donors to the “Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee.” At that time, Winson indicated that he was self-employed as a Hedge Fund Manager and Daws indicated that he was a Systems Analyst for Frigate Ventures.
• Prior to working for Frigate Ventures, Daws was a Portfolio Manager at Gryphon Partners, a hedge fund located in Dallas, Texas. Daws, along with Anthony (“Amr”) Elgindy, Jeffrey Royer, etc. all committed securities fraud by obtaining confidential FBI investigation information and published it online through the AnthonyPacific.com web site. That negative information had the effect of artificially deflating the price of various companies stocks that they sold short. Nearly 35 companies were destroyed through this activity.
• In 2005, Daws plead guilty under a plea agreement and was sentenced to three years’ probation, $50,000 fine and 500 hours of community service. Elgindy and Royer were convicted as part of the conspiracy. (Daws would still have been on probation when working at Frigate Ventures).
• In 2006, the SEC sued Daws’ former employer, Gryphon Partners for an alleged illegal trading scheme that included insider trading by using material nonpublic information and selling short the securities of certain PIPE issuers through naked short sales in Canada. The case was dismissed in 2008.
• In 2010 Daws established a Twitter account (@Jonathan_Daws) through which he follows or is followed by Anthony Elgindy, AnthonyPacific, Adam Spears, Moez Kassam, Sunny Puri and Norman Gates (@LaughinPaulRyan).(Note: As of September 2014, Bruce Winson maintains contact with Jonathan Daws via Jonathan’s wife‘s Facebook page.)
• Bruce Winson was born in South Africa and became a naturalized US citizen in 1987. He travels extensively, speaks Russian and Afrikaans and maintains contact with family members in South Africa.
Winson-Daws Connection
In 2007, Bruce Winson appeared on a list of donors to the “Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee.” At that time, he indicated that he was self-employed as a Hedge fund manager. Appearing on the same list of donors was a Mr. Jonathan Gregory Daws. Daws indicated that he was a Systems Analyst for Frigate Ventures.
The Investigator 