BC investment fraudster penalized $2.3 million, collection unlikely
Posted May 14, 2018 12:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A local investment fraud has resulted in a seven-figure penalty, but the provincial securities regulator has a dismal record of collecting fines.
The B.C. Securities Commission says Roy Ping Bai received $1,530,000 from nine investors, most of them B.C. residents, in 2012 and 2013. It says Bai told them the money would be used in foreign exchange trading and pay interest of 30 to 60 per cent per year.
Instead, according to the regulator, Bail put only $129,000 into forex funds and used the rest to pay other investors or cover personal expenses. Bai testified that one $50,000 investment was channeled to his ex-wife and son. Using new investors’ money to pay earlier investors is a Ponzi scheme.
A commission panel decision in February said Bai, who lived in Vancouver and West Vancouver at the time, used “an extensive campaign of deceit” to keep investors from getting their money back and learning about his scheme.
It included lying that the company would go public, that its application was rejected, and that it would have to reapply. He also lied that there would be a tax audit of his company, RBP Consulting, and twice in 2014 promised that investors’ money would be returned.
Bai has been fined $1 million and ordered to pay back $1,291,000, but Postmedia reported last fall that the BCSC has collected less than two per cent of more than a half-billion dollars of penalties issued over a decade.
