Sequence of fraudulent schemes bilked eight traders of just about $1.6 million, says the Alberta Securities Fee.
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A phony pitch to promote professional athlete meet-ups and NHL jerseys has been whistled down by a securities enforcer, sending an Alberta scammer to jail for seven years.
These scams and different fraudulent schemes bilked eight traders of just about $1.6 million, says the Alberta Securities Fee (ASC), which described the top fakes constructed by Nickolas Donovan Ellis as elaborate.
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“We contemplate sure of his actions to be aggravating,” acknowledged the ASC.
“He not solely lied to the traders; he orchestrated a false actuality wherein traders believed that they’d authorized counsel representing their pursuits, that celebrities had been a part of the enterprise, and that the investments had been assured by funds held in a lawyer’s belief account.”
One of many scams that yielded $300,000 concerned the acquisition and resale of discontinued Reebok NHL jerseys that may be signed by gamers and framed.
To hoodwink traders, Ellis carried out excursions of a framing facility and offered himself because the framer, mentioned the ASC.
Ellis, who was convicted in Courtroom of King’s Bench of eight counts of fraud over $5,000 in January 2023, additionally used “the framer’s fictitious e-mail to manufacture a Las Vegas picture shoot, promoting the identical curiosity within the jerseys to 3 teams of traders” in 2017 and 2018.
Other than a partial reimbursement to traders of $21,165, the person used the entire funds for his personal private use, mentioned the ASC.
Separate occasion of fraud concerned pretend on-line subscription service
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One other sports-related ploy, this one performed out from 2016 to 2018, supplied a fictitious on-line subscription system that may enable clients to buy time assembly with skilled athletes earlier than and after video games.
“Every investor believed that he had bought an unique curiosity within the mission, however Ellis offered the exact same curiosity within the expertise to 3 Alberta traders who invested, in mixture, $1,189,246,” mentioned the ASC.
In yet one more rip-off that started in November 2017, Ellis bilked an investor of $40,250, stating the cash would assist present bridge financing to help the carrying prices of a building mission till the finished constructing was offered.
The investor was to obtain a return from the revenue of the constructing’s sale however “on March 15, 2019, Ellis issued a cheque realizing the account had inadequate funds. The investor was by no means repaid,” mentioned the ASC.
“The courtroom concluded that the mission was by no means actual.”
The fraudster additionally bilked one investor of practically $50,000 in a fictitious plan to accumulate a building supplies agency, famous the fee.
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Ellis was additionally convicted of three counts of trafficking in cast paperwork and three counts of identification fraud and was ordered to pay $1,672,000 in restitution and stop buying and selling in securities and derivatives.
“The influence of the monetary losses suffered by the traders was vital, together with destructive results on retirement plans, potential to contribute financially to their youngsters’s schooling, marriages and bodily and psychological well-being,” acknowledged the ASC.
“Ellis’s lack of regret, deliberate deception, and impersonation of a lawyer had been thought-about aggravating elements.”
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
X (Twitter) @BillKaufmannjrn
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