Happy that you shared this piece but aren't the crypto exchanges who list these coins complicit in the act or are they going to feign ignorance that they don't know what's happening? I believe that even though there are the other actors pushing it, it will not be completely and successfully executed without the go ahead of the exchange. In my estimation, they look the other way just so that everyone who's in on it can get something out of it.
There are different types of manipulations. There are ones that some exchanges or the trading platform officials will be the ones that will be manipulating. But there are also ones that not the exchange that will be manipulating. The exchange officials does not need to be the one manipulating as it can be wash trading and not insider trading.