Congress Probes Trump-Linked Brokerage Over Chinese Ramp-and-Dump IPO Schemes
The House Select Committee on China, chaired by Representative John Moolenaar (R-MI) with Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) as ranking member, sent letters on Monday to three New York-based brokerages demanding they account for their roles underwriting US stock listings of Chinese companies later linked to manipulation.
The three firms are Dominari Securities LLC, Revere Securities LLC, and D. Boral Capital LLC, all asked to produce communications, trading records, due diligence materials, and know-your-customer verification records on Chinese IPOs going back to 2020. The deadline is Friday.
The letters allege those issuers were used by organised crime networks to run “ramp-and-dump” schemes: coordinated buyers briefly push a newly listed stock above its IPO price, insiders sell, and retail investors absorb the crash.
Lawmakers estimate $16 billion in retail investor wealth has been erased since 2023 through such schemes, with the FBI reporting a 300% year-on-year increase in related victim complaints. Several stocks Dominari underwrote have previously been suspended by the SEC or collapsed more than 80% in value.
The Trump Connection
The inclusion of Dominari gives the probe political weight. Dominari Securities is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dominari Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: DOMH), headquartered in Trump Tower several floors below the Trump Organization.
Eric Trump is the company’s fourth-largest individual shareholder, and he and Donald Trump Jr. joined its advisory board in December 2024, formalised in an SEC filing in February 2025.
Kyle Wool, Dominari’s president, has said he met the Trump brothers at Long Island golf club charity events. Dominari said it received the committee’s letter and would respond “in due course.”
D. Boral Capital carries its own relevant history. Formerly known as EF Hutton before its co-founders parted ways in late 2024, it served as lead underwriter for the SPAC that merged with Trump Media & Technology Group to take Truth Social public in 2024.
An earlier SEC inquiry into EF Hutton raised concerns about paid stock promotion among its microcap clients. Wool of Dominari previously worked at Revere, meaning all three firms in the probe share overlapping personnel.
Not the First Move
The letters escalate a regulatory effort already in motion. The SEC established a cross-border enforcement task force in September 2025, explicitly targeting underwriters and auditors that may have enabled violations tied to foreign issuers.
The DOJ has separately indicted ten individuals linked to China and seized more than $214 million in allegedly fraudulent proceeds.
The committee has previously sent demand letters to JPMorgan and Bank of America over the planned IPO of Contemporary Amperex Technology, designated by the Pentagon as a Chinese military-linked enterprise, and has questioned trading platform Webull over alleged CCP connections.
The core question is whether US underwriters have functioned as the essential on-ramp for schemes that could not otherwise reach American retail investors. The firms have until Friday to start answering it.
