Mingran Wang, a 52-year-old Fremont, California, resident who presented himself as the founder and investment manager of Greenroots Capital, pleaded guilty to securities fraud for executing more than 3,000 illegal spoofing trades between 2021 and 2024. Federal prosecutors say Wang placed fake orders in thinly traded stocks to move prices in his favor, then canceled those orders before they could be filled, pocketing more than $1.3 million in the process. The guilty plea, announced by the Department of Justice, arrived alongside a parallel civil enforcement action by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Why Wang’s guilty plea matters for thinly traded markets
Spoofing works by flooding a stock’s order book with buy or sell interest that the trader never intends to honor. Other market participants see the sudden demand and adjust their own prices accordingly. The spoofer then trades on the opposite side at the artificially shifted price and quickly cancels the fake orders. In liquid, high-volume stocks, surveillance algorithms at exchanges and regulators can flag unusual cancel rates relatively fast. Wang’s scheme targeted a different corner of the market: thinly traded American Depositary Receipts, or ADRs, where daily volume is low and a single burst of orders can move the price significantly.
The SEC alleged that Wang manipulated over 150 thinly traded ADRs from October 2021 through at least November 2024. That three-year window is unusually long for a spoofing case involving a single individual. One factor that may explain the scheme’s durability is the institutional wrapper Wang built around his trading. He marketed himself as the founder of Greenroots Capital, and an SEC Form D filing lists him as a related person for Greenroots Capital Partners, LP. Registering a limited partnership and filing with the SEC gave his activity the appearance of a legitimate fund operation, a veneer that counterparties and brokerages may have been less likely to question than orders from an unaffiliated day trader.
DOJ and SEC evidence against Mingran Wang
The criminal and civil cases rest on two separate but overlapping sets of allegations. The Justice Department announced that Wang engaged in more than 3,000 instances of manipulative trading and spoofing. Wang pleaded guilty to securities fraud spoofing, confirming the core conduct. On the civil side, the SEC’s litigation release, dated June 25, 2026, described the same pattern and pegged Wang’s ill-gotten gains at more than $1.3 million.
Both agencies described the same mechanics. Wang would place large orders on one side of the market to create the illusion of buying or selling pressure. Once the price moved, he executed real trades on the other side, then canceled the initial orders. The scheme relied on speed and on the thin liquidity of the ADRs he chose. In stocks where only a few hundred shares trade per day, even a modest batch of fake orders can shift the quoted price enough to generate a profit on the real trade.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
