Andrew Left, the polarizing short-seller behind Citron Research, is firing back at federal prosecutors who’ve charged him with fraud, calling the case a political hit job driven by Wall Street insiders. In a motion filed July 2 in California, Left asked the court to drop the charges, arguing that his research was truthful, his actions legal, and his goal always the same: expose corporate lies and protect retail investors.
He claims he’s being punished not for manipulation, but for telling inconvenient truths. “I uncovered fraud,” he says. “I didn’t cause it.”
Prosecutors allege a more cynical story. According to their complaint, Left used Citron to post aggressive short reports on public companies while secretly trading in ways that let him pocket $20 million in profits. The government claims he sometimes advised investors to sell while he prepared to buy—effectively playing the public as pawns in a high-stakes shell game.
Left calls that selective prosecution. He says bullish analysts pump junk stocks every day, causing enormous retail losses, and nobody bats an eye. But when a short-seller does the reverse—speaks against hype—they face a courtroom instead of a CNBC interview.
At the center of his defense is a name familiar to Canadian cannabis investors: Namaste Technologies. In 2018, Left predicted the TSX-V listed cannabis company was headed to zero. His Citron report triggered chaos. The company’s CEO, Sean Dollinger, was fired days later. Left argues that was proof his analysis was right—and proof he served the public.
“I didn’t just throw accusations,” Left says in his motion. “I forced real accountability.”
But the SEC’s not letting him off so easily. They say he used that chaos to cover his short position and cash in, all while going on Bloomberg to proclaim he’d keep shorting the stock until it hit zero. Publicly hammering Namaste, while privately collecting on the fall.
A similar pattern emerged in his takedown of Cronos Group, another 2018 cannabis darling. In internal messages, he said, “We can DESTROY CRON,” and boasted about turning that strategy into a half-million-dollar payday.
Left now lives in Boca Raton, Florida. The courtroom, though, may soon become his most public stage yet. Whether he’s remembered as a market watchdog or a market manipulator will depend on how the jury reads the fine print between strategy, legality, and intent.