UPDATE 1-Canadian man pleads guilty over $300 mln penny stock fraud

(Adds plea details, sentencing date, background on Cynk, case
citation)
NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - A Canadian man charged in
connection with a $300 million penny-stock manipulation fraud
that prosecutors say drove the market value of little-known Cynk
Technology Corp CYNK.PK past $6 billion pleaded guilty on
Thursday to two conspiracy charges.
Philip Kueber, 54, pleaded guilty in federal court in
Brooklyn to charges he conspired to commit securities fraud and
money laundering.
He was the first of nine defendants to admit wrongdoing in
connection with the scheme.
"I knew what we did was against the law, and I accept
responsibility for my actions," he said at a hearing.
Kueber also agreed to forfeit $1.2 million as part of a plea
agreement. He will be sentenced on Jan. 7, 2016.
His lawyer, Stanley Greenberg, declined to comment after the
hearing.
U.S. regulators in July 2014 suspended trading in Cynk, a
social media company with no revenue or assets, after its share
price soared without explanation to $21.95 from 6 cents in less
than a month.
That surge followed a month when no Cynk shares were traded
at all, and briefly gave the company a market value higher than
three dozen companies in the Standard & Poor's 500.
Kueber, who authorities say has also lived in California and
Belize, a Central American country, surrendered in August. His
surrender came a month after being indicted over his alleged
role in a scheme run by a group controlled by Gregg Mulholland,
a U.S.-Canadian citizen arrested in June.
Both men were added as defendants to a case involving the
alleged operators of Belize-based IPC Corporate Services, which
authorities said helped clients evade U.S. securities laws.
Mulholland and Robert Bandfield, the accused founder of IPC,
are being held without bail. The six other defendants have not
appeared in U.S. court.
The case is U.S. v. Bandfield, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of New York, No. 14-00476.