A recent announcement by the Justice Department not only shed light on why so many thieves are attracted to stock "pump-and-dump" schemes, but why there's no shortage of suckers to help them make millions.

The Justice Department just announced guilty pleas from four scammers who made an estimated $20 billion by using fake news stories to promote heavily promoting a pretty worthless stock, then selling at a huge profit only to watch the stock free fall at the cost of innocent investors.

But this scam would not have worked if it weren't for two groups of greedy, or at best naive speculators.

In this scam, the thieves were able to trick a bunch of companies into believing that the scammers were in fact legitimate and credible experts who could help take these small businesses public. Although the Justice Department didn't name names, I'd be very interested to know who these business owners were and what steps they took to verify the credentials of the promoters.

And of course the other group of suckers are the thousands of greedy investors who know or should know that the information they're getting is not verifiable and is not credible. But of course many of these investors probably smelled a rat and hoped to sell on the up and not the down.

Another reminder that most cybercrimes and identity thefts would not succeed but for the apathy, stupidity, or greed of consumers.