Sentence handed down in BC Ponzi scheme
Posted September 28, 2016 12:38 pm.
Last Updated September 28, 2016 7:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A disgraced notary who masterminded a $100 million Ponzi scheme has been sentenced to six years in a federal penitentiary on 14 counts of fraud.
Rashida Samji, 63, was also ordered to pay just over $10 million in restitutions to 14 complainants.
Dressed in black, Samji kept her head lowered as judge Gregory Rideout summarized the facts of the case. Later, as she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, one of her victims said, “Bye, Rashida” softly from the gallery.
Rideout says although this was Samji’s first offense and she expressed remorse in court, this was not a simple error of judgement. Instead, she used a position of trust to commit crimes on a scale large enough to destabilize capital markets.
Court heard the scheme was operated out of Metro Vancouver between 2003 and 2012 and involved more than 200 investors, including some of Samji’s closest friends and family.
Investors were told they were providing collateral for a winery expansion in South Africa and South America. They ended up suffering losses between $44,000 and $8 million.
In 2014, the BC Securities Commission found that Samji and two companies she controlled committed over $100 million in fraud. She was later ordered to pay $33 million in fines, plus $11 million in compensation to investors, which are separate from the restitution payments ordered today.
“The case law is clear that an accused person shouldn’t profit from the fruits of his or her crime,” explains Crown lawyer Kevin Marks. “In terms of if a person can pay that restitution or not, that’s secondary.”
The Fraser Valley woman was most recently employed as a hotel clerk making $14 an hour.
