I read your articles about the new rules trying to protect investors from scams such as Bre-X Minerals and Delgratia Mining and was extremely surprised to find no reference of possible punishments.
It is my firm opinion that Canadian authorities are too lax on this kind of crime. Hardly a month goes by in Europe without an article in financial magazines about a new scam concocted by the same people using the same methods: an obscure penny stock trading on a Canadian exchange touted to investors through telemarketing and advertising. This never happens in France. Why? French authorities take these sorts of crimes extremely seriously.
A few years ago, two American con men with links to the U.S. mafia tried a similar scheme in France. As soon as the police got wind of the story, they picked up one of the men on his yacht, which was offshore, near Marseilles.
Both men were sentenced to 15 years, reduced to five when they gave investors their money back. Nothing like this is imaginable in Canada or the U.S.
A few years ago, two respectable scientists joined a convicted white-collar criminal to sell shares of their company, which claimed to have discovered some sort of new technology in the laboratories at McGill University. Dutch authorities stopped the business when they discovered that employees in that country were not being paid. Canadian authorities refused to extradite the men. Sometime afterward, I found the same people quoted in an article in Business Week on whether unassessed technology was driving investors away from markets.
It’s always the same story: white-collar criminals make millions by selling fantasies to investors. Now, I realize that authorities hope to stop the scam by just telling criminals what they have to do not to be accused of doing something irregular.
Giuliano Gatta
Milan, Italy
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