Who is Mithra Forensic Research?
Mithra Forensic Research is an anonymous organization who has published two negative articles questioning the validity of Vishop (VIPS) accounting practices. Mithra was created explicitly for the purposes of these articles. We are now unmasking who is behind Mithra Forensic Research.
There are at least two players involved in Mithra Forensic Research. They are:
How do we know?
SeekingAlpha does not scrub EXIF (metadata stored with digital image files) from their images. Melvin and Daniel used desktop image editing software which left their name as the author in the EXIF metadata. For example: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3172676-vipshop-we-are-not-buying-the-financial-statements
Here's one: http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/uploads/2015/5/40082796_14313718177618_rId18.jpg
Using an online exif viewer we see: "Created by Glapion, Melvin on April 4th, 2015."
All of the other images, including the images on the second article, have "Daniel Shvartsman" as the author (Here's an example)
Additional Clues
Melvin Glapion
- Melvin has an extensive background in financial research, especially in the areas of calling out fraud in emerging markets. He has a lot of credibility. Why the facade?
- Mithra Forensic made this comment: "I am not biased against Harvard Grads as I happen to be one. Just saying that this fact alone is not a basis for believing VIPS' financial statements.". Melvin is indeed a Harvard Grad
- Melvin is from New Orleans, LA and went to Tulane University. Look at this property record owned by the Glapion family. The address is 4616 MITHRA STREET
- Melvin is an expert so why is he attacking this company anonmously? What does he have to gain? Did a short seller hire him?
Daniel Shvartsman
- Why is Daniel's name showing up on all the later images? He is, at a minimum, doing final touch-ups or image editing. Which seems a bit odd for the managing editor to be doing for user-contributed articles.
- The first Mithra article showed up as a "SA Pro" article, which is normally reserved for well-respected and trusted authors. A user calls him out on it
- Daniel was a SA contributer before being hired as an editor. He can no longer contribute articles. That must be frustrating for an accomplished stock writer. Mithra provides a way to continue his work and draw more customers to Seeking Alpha
- Daniel very rarely tweeted (156 lifetime tweets as of now) until very recently. Conveniently with the release of the first VIPS article and quite a few more tweets on that topic since then.
- Why is Daniel involved? Is he getting paid by Melvin? Is this behavior appropriate for a SeekingAlpha managing editor?
