Unfortunately, we have to revive the series as the shorts are embarking on a desperate last-ditch effort to smear InterOil with the help of a self-styled “world-class” fraud expert (who happens to hang around message boards all-day, every day…)

A certain Sam Antar (and a few of his underlings, one of them a familiar character) appeared on the IOC Yahoo message board at a time that our resident basher, good for at least 40 posts a day for the last four years using multiple ID’s seems to have been retired. Coincidence?

Sam claims to be a reformed character since he went down for one of the best known scams in history, and tries to make amends by uncovering fraudulent companies, or so he says.

He announced a ‘forensic accounting’ exercise on InterOil. He didn’t exactly got off to a very promising start, as he has to ask the board whether people could help him provide the background info he was looking for about InterOil insiders before they came involved in InterOil…

So apparently he has no idea. Not even for this first step..(as a background check is the place to start such an exercise, according to him).

Two days, and a dozen or so messages later, he still hasn’t dug up any background of any people and, more irritantly, hasn’t written anything about InterOil or his ‘forensic accounting exercise’. He chose instead to build up his credentials, helped by a few of his underlings (one of them familiar to us, who found it necessary to invite him, and then thank him for a class on the message board instead of using Sam’s blog, even when that was pointed out by Sam himself).

A most important question immediately force themselves upon us:

• What brings Sam Antar to the InterOil board?? Given that he claims to be neither short nor long, nor being paid by anyone for his work, nor does he seems to have had a single indication that anything is wrong with InterOil (as he started off his ‘forensic accounting exercise’ with asking the message board for help at the very first point to tackle)??

We’re still waiting for the first results of Sam’s exercise, perhaps the whole project derailed because nobody came forward when he asked for help, and there is not a whole lot to go on.

Or could it be that he’s just doing some friends a favour, and uses his self-styled reputation as a reformed character and fraud buster (It takes one to know one!) to scare people with a project that will, in fact, never arrive?

This might be a good point to remind you that it’s way easier to scare people into selling than it is to ‘scare’ them into buying…

By the way, another of those unsavoury characters, Bostonkenmore, also promised a “detailed research“, but we’re also still waiting for the results of that. Perhaps an update of his infamous ‘imploded well’ “theory”, hilarious stuff.

Notice also the name he mentions, Barry Minkow. Keep that name in mind, he is another crook claiming to be a reformed character and now supposedly dedicating his life to the lord and busting fraudulent companies, just like Sam Antar.

As always, the question here is what their business model is, what the real reasons are for all their efforts?? And equally interesting, this turns out not to be the only link between them….. (stay tuned!)

We’ll leave you with an (otherwise curiously favourable) assessment by Fortune:

• As a would-be fraudbuster, Sam E. has yet to notch his first kill. (Although in fairness he doesn’t hold himself out to be a full-time 10-Q detective. “I don’t have 40 people working for me like the SEC,” he says.) He hasn’t brought any companies down or caused any regulators to open any investigations.

Despite his own claims which he fanfares on the InterOil board. And really, it’s not because of lack of effort. Check the (Yahoo an Mothly Fool) Overstock boards and you’ll see he’s at it all day, every day…

So, a “world-class” fraudbuster with no trackrecord, hanging around message boards all day and asking these for help as he doesn’t seem to know where to start but yet pre-announces his coming uncovering of InterOil a dozen times or so, helped by a few unsavoury characters? Does that make sense?

Here is Sam in his own words:

• I’ll be honest with you. If I did not get caught, I’d probably still be a criminal today…. There is never any redemption. There’s no happy ending to this. You want me to tell you that now I walk old ladies across the street? I can tell you that, and it might make you feel better, but it isn’t necessarily the truth. It doesn’t happen that way.

You might wanna keep that in mind the next time you read something he writes. All of this is already quite comical, but this is not the end of the story, stay tuned, we’ll have more…

In the meantime, ask yourself this: even if he actually embarks on the exercise and finds a parking ticket or two, does that alter the quantity of gas/condensates/oil in the ground?

No. Hence, one of his henchmen already tried several times (here in a sneaky way, just alluding something is wrong, here, here, and here) to exploit a rather irrelevant difference between resource and reserves (explained here). And, somehow we’re pretty sure he will try again… And is it a coincidence that this guy hangs around the Overstock an Usana Health boards all day…

We’ll leave you with a complete message from Sam posted in the middle of the night on the InterOil board, apparently it was such a crucial piece in his ‘forensic accounting exercise’ it couldn’t wait:

• Now that some of Patrick Byrne’s kool aid drinkers and NSS conspiratists are here, it’s now time for some real fun! However, we are still missing the guest of honor: paid internet stalker Judd Bagley. Judd will help my critics (I call them my groupies) with his usual mix of anti-Semitism, blackmail, or whatever he needs to do to please Patrick Byrne (who writes out the checks). Keep the hate coming!!!!!! Sam E. Antar (documented Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne lying to investors from 2000 to 2009)

If this is representative of his coming magnum opus on InterOil, I think we can safely say the longs can sleep safely…