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Greed and Corruption Follow the Money and you find special interest groups |
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TAMPA - Lou Pearlman, the gregarious mastermind behind boy bands such as 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, is now admitting his role in a different kind of choreography: a Ponzi scheme. (AP)
SAN LUIS OBISPO - A transplant surgeon could face up to eight years in jail after being charged with trying to hasten the death of a patient. (Telegraph UK)
MOSCOW - Former Russian minister Yevgeny Adamov has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison for abusing his office and embezzling more than $30m. (BBC) MORE: Adamov sentenced
VANCOUVER - Five of six downtown Vancouver hotels bought by the BC government for low-rental housing were bought from one man, developer Robert Wilson, who made a profit of $10 million on the sales in less than two years. (Vancouver Province)
KATHMANDU - "I am just a doctor, not a kidney dealer," Amit Kumar told reporters as he was brought to Kathmandu after being arrested Thursday in the southern Nepalese town of Chitwan. (CBC) MORE: Kumar denies role in harvesting ring 'Dr. Horror' nabbed
TORONTO - A man who posed as a high-flying financial adviser and befriended small investors, bilking some out of their life savings, has pleaded guilty to defrauding six people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Toronto Star)
HAITI - Impoverished Haitians are increasingly resorting to eating biscuits made of mud as food prices soar in the Caribbean country. The discs are made from dried yellow clay mixed with water, salt and vegetable shortening or margarine. (Telegraph UK) PREVIOUS: Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt Genocide a la bonne femme CIDA helping the people of Haiti improve their living conditions
Nigeria graft boss strikes again ABUJA - Nigerian anti-corruption agents have issued an arrest warrant for an eighth former governor. Lucky Igbinedion of Edo State is accused of stealing more than $24M through three front companies. (BBC) PREVIOUS: Nigeria corruption tsar sidelined Nuhu Ribadu
VICTORIA - The Oak Bay Marine Group's former vice-president of finance has been charged with theft and fraud after more than half a million dollars was diverted from the company's bank accounts. Graeme Bryson, 43, of Victoria, has been charged with theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000. (Victoria Times Colonist)
Kerik enters 'not guilty' plea WHITE PLAINS - Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner and failed nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, on Friday pleaded not guilty to federal corruption and tax fraud charges, which were announced in an unsealed indictment. (Fox) MORE: Bernard Kerik indicted
VICTORIA - Financially troubled forest company Pope & Talbot has put more than 6,400 hectares of private land in the Kootenays up for sale, even though much of it is part of a tree farm licence and can't legally be sold. (Victoria Times Colonist) PREVIOUS: AG asked to probe land transfer Developer has high hopes for Jordan River community A quick tour of the issues Forests minister objects to sale of timber lands BC Ministry of Forests and Range
Forces find illegal driftnet fishing COMOX - A multinational operation on the high seas involving a Canadian Forces Aircraft from CFB Comox has turned up photographic evidence of 10 vessels involved in driftnet fishing, a practice banned by the United Nations. (Victoria Times Colonist) MORE: High seas stake-out
VANCOUVER - In his native Ukraine and for several years in Toronto, Walter Datsko was an accountant and family man who drove his two daughters to movie nights in a beat-up Oldsmobile. (Vancouver Sun)
Councillor's father charged with fraud MONTREAL - A Montreal man whose daughter is a city councillor from the Southwest borough is accused of taking money from a real estate developer in return for trying to obtain a zoning change. (Montreal Gazette)
Canadian con artists get 24 years He was a Canadian who seemed to be living the American dream on the sunny California coast - a yacht and a 2006 Ferrari, country club and golf memberships, a sprawling, multimillion-dollar mansion in a wealthy enclave at seaside Monterey. To dozens of his friends and clients, Jay Zubick was a popular and trusted investment adviser from Toronto. (Windsor Star)
BANGLADESH - Police in Bangladesh today arrested the former prime minister Khaleda Zia as part of the interim government's campaign against corruption. Ms Zia is the second former prime minister to be detained in the anti-corruption drive. Her arch-rival, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has been held since July on blackmail charges. (Guardian UK) MORE: Bangladesh crisis
TORONTO - Walter Garrick, 37, is facing 16 charges of theft and fraud after he was arrested on Thursday by Toronto police fraud investigators. (Toronto Star) |
ABUJA - Some $2B-worth of Nigerian energy contracts were awarded without a bidding process by the former president and his energy minister, officials say. (BBC) Abdulsalami Abubakar Olusegun Obasanjo
Developer leaves buyers in limbo KELOWNA - The Willows condominium development in the Okanagan town of Lake Country is in receivership, leaving about 78 purchasers in limbo. The condos were being built by Divergent Environments, a Victoria-based company. (CBC)
VANCOUVER - A group of former high school buddies has been ordered to pay $510,000 to the Insurance Corporation of BC for staging a series of crashes as part of an insurance fraud scheme. (Vancouver Sun)
EDMONTON - Lax security at Alberta's privatized registries has produced an embarrassing export trade in fraudulent drivers' licences that is threatening highway safety across the country. (Edmonton Journal)
PARIS - Gilbertte Van Erpe, 67, was arrested last week in Nice after nearly two years on the run. Police allege she made between C$21.7M and C$25.66M by persuading 5,000 Chileans and 25,000 Peruvians to invest savings into what they believed was miraculous "cheese paste." (Star News)
Tanzanian PM to resign over graft TANZANIA – "Because I have been linked to this scandal, I have decided to write to the president asking to be relieved of my duties," Edward Lowassa told MPs. (BBC)
TORONTO - A few years ago Lushan Lu subdivided his large Scarborough home into an illegal rooming house, creating 18 bedrooms and eight bathrooms. Now he's returning it to its original form. That comes after he pleaded guilty in court this summer to city zoning bylaw infractions. He and co-owner Zhuan "May" Wang were each fined $5,000. If Lu and Wang had just one person per room in their house they would collect more than $7,000 each month. (Toronto Star)
OTTAWA - Krista Erickson, an Ottawa-based CBC-TV reporter who CBC said fed questions to a Liberal MP during the Mulroney-Schreiber hearings in December, has been transferred to Toronto after the broadcaster found her actions "inappropriate." (CP) PREVIOUS: CBC releases response to complaint CBC does right Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez Honore-Mercier (electoral district)
Shipwreck, treasure, insider trading WASHINGTON - The US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday that Ernesto Tapanes, 39, agreed to pay more than $216,000 to settle insider trading charges in the case involving the 18th century shipwreck, code-named Black Swan. (Reuters) MORE: Canadian guilty of insider trading
TORONTO - Five Toronto-area residents face more than 100 fraud-related charges in a real estate scam that sold parking lot spaces as condos, police say. Bank employees, lawyers and real estate agents were all working together to defraud Toronto Dominion of $3.8 million, Det. Craig Ellis explained. (Toronto Star)
EDMONTON - A 61-year-old paralegal was sentenced Monday to more than five years in prison after she "greased the wheel" of a $30-million mortgage fraud believed to be the largest in Alberta history. (Edmonton Journal)
MONTREAL - The RCMP have busted what they describe as a Montreal-based network that pirated copies of DVDs, mostly of defunct U.S. television series, and sold them over the Internet. (Montreal Gazette) PREVIOUS: Ripoff Report: tvboxset.com
NEW YORK - With a hidden FBI camera rolling inside a New York hotel suite in 2003, an unsuspecting Rev. Al Sharpton, Democratic candidate for president, spoke candidly. (Philadelphia Inquirer) PREVIOUS: : Investigation of Sharpton an offshoot Subpoenas for Al Sharpton's aides Rev. under at-tax
JERUSALEM - More than 100 police investigators raided government buildings and private offices Sunday, searching for evidence in a series of criminal investigations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. (AP)
Soccer club accuses ex-president HAMILTON - The near-bankrupt Dundas Girls' Soccer Club is suing its former president for allegedly siphoning club cash into his own pocket. The club launched a lawsuit last week against Wayne Potter, who ran the club for the past five years, alleging he took more than $81,000 out of club coffers for his own use. (Hamilton Spectator)
An increasingly hostile consumer climate is making Canadians who serve your drinks, staff your flights and ring up your purchases feel like they've accepted an invitation to their own hanging just by showing up for work. Across the country, employee stress and incidents of customer conflict are soaring, and physically and verbally abusive customers are making headlines (CanWest)
Ex-President gets life for corruption MANILA - Deposed President Joseph Estrada was convicted and sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after a landmark six-year trial on charges that he took bribes and kickbacks in office. (AP) |
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OTTAWA - A group opposed to public-private hospital partnerships claimed Friday it had documents suggesting the provincial government approved at least one project based on faulty information - and it's concerned the same thing may have happened with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. (CanWest) MORE: Documents expose flaws in cost comparison of P3 hospital financing |
An Aussie conman who left a global trail of debt, deceit and powerful enemies before disappearing 10 years ago faked his own death says Rakesh Saxena. Tim Gatland who boasted about supposed links to the plutonium and arms trade and had seemed to relish making enemies in the Thai military and government, the Russian mafia and even the CIA. (Asian Pacific Post) PREVIOUS: One lie leads to another |
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Jailed chef steamed lawyer free EDMONTON - Brenda Martin found it ironic that prominent lawyer Marco Antonio del Toro wandered into the Guadalajara courthouse on Monday, the day of the final hearing in a legal nightmare that has seen her spend two years in prison. Both Martin and del Toro once worked for Canadian con man Alyn Waage. Del Toro and Martin both told Mexican investigators in 2001 they didn't know the money they received from Waage was fraudulently obtained - but their treatment was distinctly different. (Journal) |
May take up to 30 days to issue ruling Conman's mansion for sale, by his lawyer Mexican justice all about bribes Canada could have freed Martin Canadian languishes in Mexican jail Leader of $60M internet scam pleads guilty |
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ALBANY - New York Governor Eliot Spitzer may have made a smart move when choosing lawyers to help him avoid criminal charges for soliciting prostitutes. Two were top attorneys in the same office handling his case. (Bloomberg) |
Fame of Spitzer call girl grows |
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MEPs won’t publish expense report BRUSSELS - All attempts to publish a secret report allegedly revealing "fraud on a massive scale" by European parliamentarians were "steamrolled" today, officials said. The internal European Parliament report allegedly pointing to abuse of staff allowances by EU lawmakers will remain confidential for now after attempts by parliamentarians to have it declassified failed. (Daily Mail) |
Internal EU Audit report on MEP expenses Secret report will remain secret EU Parliament in fraud inquiry |
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EDMONTON - An Edmonton man who duped his fiancee, his barber and a childhood friend into taking part in a mortgage fraud scheme alleged to involve as much as $30 million was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison. Harkamaljit (Tony) Kahlon, 30, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of fraud in connection with the alleged multimillion-dollar scam. (Edmonton Journal) |
Behind the Capital's slum mafia NEW DELHI - The latest crackdown on the Capital’s “slum mafia” by the Central Bureau of Investigation has brought to the fore a deep nexus between building contractors and government officials behind fraudulent allotment of land meant for resettlement of displaced slum dwellers. (The Hindu) MORE: Land scam: Congress in crisis management mode |
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HAMILTON - A Brantford accountant and two members of her family are accused of stealing about $1.5 million of retirement funds from a group of elderly Hamilton nuns. (Hamilton Spectator) |
Liberia discovers 'ghost' workers Liberia's government says it has found more than 7,000 'ghost' workers on its payroll - employees who do not actually exist, or do not work for it. (BBC) |
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Adviser charged with $3M fraud KEMPTVILLE - Police arrested Bruce Elmore, of Kemptville. Police accuse him of defrauding clients of $3 million over a five-year period. He is charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000. (Ottawa Citizen) |
Car dealer fined $7M for fraud VANCOUVER - A Vancouver car dealer was sentenced to two years in jail and fined $7 million in court yesterday for defrauding Ottawa of that amount in a long-running GST fraud. (Vancouver Province) |
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Kwantlen student fund misspent VANCOUVER - More than three-quarters of a million dollars in student funds was misspent, a forensic audit of Kwantlen University College student association finances has found. . (Vancouver Sun) |
Thai court issues arrest warrant BANGKOK - Thailand's Supreme Court issued arrest warrants for exiled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife on corruption charges. (Reuters) MORE: Thailand seeks extradition of ousted leader for corruption |
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VANCOUVER - A commission panel ruled Brian Anderson perpetrated a fraud, made misrepresentations and distributed securities illegally under his Frontier Assets and Alpha Program investments. (Toronto Star) |
Dad cries foul over student loans CAPE BRETON, NS - A Cape Breton man whose daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash four years ago says the federal government is harassing him over her unpaid student loans. (CBC) |
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Interest rates of 720% only fair WINNIPEG - The head of a payday loan company says he has every right to charge borrowers interest rates of more than 700%. Leo Sorensen, of Sorensen's Loans 'Til Payday, was among the first people to speak at regulatory hearings that opened today in Winnipeg. (CP) MORE: Payday loans hearings in city |
VANCOUVER - In a city that complains long and loud about the state of its taxi service, no one it seems wants to delve a little bit deeper to find out why a cabal of four companies hold a monopoly on the industry in Vancouver. (Asian Pacific Post) RELATED: Taxi firm settles with blind man refused ride because of guide dog |
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TORONTO - An alleged con man accused of bilking friends and family of more than $8-million, has been arrested again, charged with defrauding an American businessman of more than $1-million while on bail. Adam Spencer, 26, was arrested on Friday by Toronto police - six months after his parents offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep their oldest son out of jail. (National Post) |
Former PM faces more questioning PARIS - Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, prime suspect in a smear campaign scandal, is to be summoned before investigating judges in September for a new round of questioning, judicial officials said Sunday. The scandal was allegedly aimed at smearing the reputation of Nicolas Sarkozy - the new president of France. (AP) |
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EU accounts failed for 13th year LUXEMBOURG - The auditors for the EU have refused to sign off the bloc's financial accounts - for the 13th year in a row. A report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) criticizes nearly every major area of the EU's expenditure. The auditors say there are weaknesses across the board and complain of neglect and presumed attempts at fraud. (BBC) |
EU budget fails health check for 13th year Why aren't we shocked by a corrupt EU? Railroads golf courses getting EU farm aid |
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VICTORIA - Ian Thow, who defrauded clients out of millions of dollars while he was working as an investment adviser in Victoria, has been nailed with the largest fine in BC Securities Commission history. The former Berkshire Investment Group vice-president was fined $6 million and banned for life from the province's capital markets. (Victoria Times Colonist) |
Accountant unravels money trail Media push for access to details on Thow's life |
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VANCOUVER - Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon revealed that he ordered his staff last month to launch an "undercover" operation against 47 inspection facilities in the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland after three farm workers died in a freeway crash, and revelations that vans were found to be unsafe despite having just passed inspections. Sixteen of the 47 designated inspection facilities investigated in the undercover operation and audit were suspended. (Vancouver Province) |
TORONTO - Laws in Ontario may not be protecting workers from questionable business activities, Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips acknowledged yesterday. Phillips said he has asked ministry staff to do some background policy work and look for possible loopholes in consumer protection and franchise legislation. (Toronto Star) PREVIOUS: No fraud charges in job agency complaints Hope for refund dashed Dozens of lives ruined after answering job ad Fraud artist found managing job agency |
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EDMONTON - An Edmonton woman who created an elaborate pyramid scheme to fund a multimillion-dollar gambling habit was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison. Cheryl-Lynne Braun, 41, defrauded 89 people of more than $22 million, half of which she spent at three city casinos in less than a year. (Edmonton Journal) |
Police arrest man wanted for fraud FORT MCMURRAY - Police have tracked down a man in the United States who allegedly defrauded a Fort McMurray company of almost half a million dollars. Christian Richardson, 28, faces three charges of fraud totalling $425,000 and three counts of attempted fraud totaling more than $1 million. (CBC) |
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LONDON - ITV's breakfast show has suspended its phone-in competitions after being accused of defrauding its viewers by an estimated £10 million a year since 2003. | ||
Prime Time Crime