Product of the marijuana gold rush

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged on September 30 that San Diegan Ronald Salem and his alleged company, Colorado-based Infinex Ventures, made false and misleading public statements claiming that Infinex had operations and funding to develop a marijuana business. Infinex announced that it had acquired Marijuana Funding, Inc. for that purpose.

in 2014, Infinex boasted that it had access to $100 million for funding of the marijuana business through Marijuana Funding. Infinex said that it had rung up $512,000 of revenue in the second quarter of 2014.

In fact, Salem controlled both Infinex and Marijuana Funding, and neither company had operations, revenue, funding, or expertise in the marijuana business, says the agency. Infinex was supposedly based in Nevada, but its license had been revoked for failure to pay fees. Nonetheless, Infinex stock traded while the false claims were made. The Denver office of the securities agency is attempting to force Salem to pay a monetary penalty and to be banned from the securities business.