11.   Elgindy later confessed to the authorities that he and brokers at another firm had accepted bribes from stock promoters seeking to manipulate shares.

12.   Five of the companies have ties to a stock promoter who was banned from the brokerage industry last year because of violations of securities laws.

13.   In fact, it was an operation set up by the FBI to catch stock promoters who bribe brokers to buy stock in small companies.

14.   Influential business columnist Dan Dorfman will take a leave of absence from Money Magazine after it was reported federal authorities are investigating his relationship with a stock promoter.

15.   Kessler, the stock promoter, declined to return phone calls.

16.   Many of the stocks that the stock promoters promoted were traded on the Nasdaq, the charges said.

17.   Once the shares soared, the stock promoters and dealers would unload their shares on the unsuspecting public.

18.   Rafi M. Khan, a stock promoter, was accused by federal regulators Thursday of manipulating the shares of two companies.

19.   Regulators have long suspected that the Internet, with its electronic linkage of computers, serves as a cheap and easy vehicle for stock promoters to reach unwary investors.

20.   Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly, then an ambitious young politician, solemnly undertook to protect investors from the stock promoters at Morgan Stanley.