''Pump and dump'' (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme ''dump'' sell their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations, i.e. ''microcaps''. See Microcap stock fraud.

Is the following statement correct based on the text

is it illegal to pump and dump stocks
yes