NSSC Blog: Before You Invest

According to the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) registrant misconduct is a violation of securities laws by a registered person or company. It can also include misconduct to fail to register or to fail to adhere to the conditions of a registration exemption.

So far our Fraudster Friday series have focused on some of the most famous fraudsters in history. You may not have known all the details behind the names Ponzi, Madoff and Bre-X, but most people have heard of them.

Bertram Earl Jones ran a Ponzi scheme for decades in Quebec that cost his victims, including members of his own family, a reported $51.3 million Canadian.

In 1979 Jones began his own investment advising business. At the time he did not register with any securities regulator and he never would. Jones would go about offering investment advice and claim to sell securities unregistered for 30 years.

The Bre-X Minerals Ltd. scandal has all the trappings of a Hollywood story. A fledging minerals company residing in the penny stocks reportedly strikes the largest gold claim in history tucked away in the jungles of Borneo. The gold claim was worth billions and sent Bre’X’s stock value soaring from pennies to hundreds of dollars. In the end it all turned to be fool’s gold, resulting in one the largest stocks scams and cases of mining fraud in Canadian history.