The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Revere Securities LLC USD 800,000 for anti-money laundering and supervisory failures tied to initial public offerings by predominantly foreign based small cap issuers. The firm failed to detect and report potentially suspicious transactions bearing hallmarks of ramp and dump schemes and lacked reasonable customer identification and due diligence controls. Revere must retain a third party consultant to review its compliance with FINRA rules and implement recommended improvements to its supervisory procedures and systems. Since 2022, Revere has acted as lead underwriter or selling group member for offerings that included more than 40 issuers operating in Hong Kong or China. FINRA found indications of coordinated trading, unusually concentrated daily volume and steep price increases followed by rapid collapses that caused millions of dollars in secondary market losses. The firm opened accounts despite shared addresses, contradictory financial information and similar trading patterns among purportedly unrelated customers. In one offering, it allocated more than USD 1.5 million of shares to eight customers referred by a foreign broker dealer, then failed to flag coordinated liquidation instructions sent from IP addresses in countries other than those customers’ reported residences. Revere consented to FINRA’s findings without admitting or denying the charges and had already engaged a consultant to review its anti-money laundering program. FINRA’s separate review of firms’ practices involving public and private offerings by foreign operating small cap issuers, launched in October 2025, remains ongoing.

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