Saturday, May 16, 2015

Alberta lawyer goes to jail for mortgage fraud



The Edmonton Sun is reporting that "a 'rogue' lawyer who was the complicit 'lapdog' of the ringleader of a $6 million Alberta mortgage fraud was put behind bars Friday for his part in the financial crime. Roy Elander, 65, was sentenced to 3-1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay $426,000 in restitution after earlier being convicted of 14 counts of fraud over $5,000. The judge ruled Elander was “instrumental” in facilitating the central Alberta mortgage fraud - orchestrated by Allan MacMullin - while acting as a lawyer for both the financial institutions involved and the straw buyers. "

The Edmonton Sun previously reported that the actual ringleader, Allan MacMullin, was given a 10 year sentence and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution to two financial institutions and various individual straw buyers after earlier being convicted of 38 counts of fraud over $5,000.

Another case of Mortgage Fraud in Alberta involved more than 100 people including Devinder Shory, Stephen Harper's Conservative MP for Calgary Northeast. CBC reported that the Bank of Montreal settled out of court with all but a handful of the 160 people involved after the insurance fund for lawyers, the Alberta Lawyers Insurance Association (ALIA) agreed to pay $9.2 million to BMO to settle the case on behalf of all 17 lawyers named in the suit which stopped the RCMP's criminal investigation dead in it's tracks.

Calgary Hells Angel associate Ali El-Sayed was convicted of being a "ringleader" of another mortgage fraud in Alberta. Ken LeBlanc and Ali El-Sayed's other associate Jahan Meshkati was shot dead in BC last year. Nobody likes a scammer.

8 comments:

  1. white collar criminals such as described in your article do deserve to go to jail and have to pay back the money they stole. For it is criminals such as this who really do know what they are doing and doing it for greed.

    This type of crime, in my opinion, is much worse than B & E, car theft, etc. People who go into white collar crime are usually well educated professionals. It wasn't like the didn't have a choice.

    You mentioned a Con M.P. How were they involved in this case? Just wondering. there are enough criminals in the Con party for them to establish their own chapter of the H.A.

    Paul Sona, in jail
    Arthur Porter, $22 M in fraud, in jail in Panama awaiting deportation to Canada
    Del Mastro, guilty awaiting sentencing
    Duffy, 31 charges of fraud
    Wallin, being investigated for fraud
    Brazeau, being investigated for fraud
    those are the recent ones I can remember off the top of my head. If we can add another Con to the list, please do share.

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    1. We don't now what Harper's MP's involvement in the mortgage fraud was because after the insurance settlement the criminal investigation was dead in the water except for a few scape goats. The Bruce Carson story is another.

      The Arthur Porter case is very significant because it involved mayor arms dealing, drug trafficking and money laundering as well as involved CSIS. That one is also worth watching closely. You're right though the list of Harper's fraudsters gets longer and longer.

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  2. Simply for your information:

    a Toronto blogger, Montreal Simon, covers a lot of the "crime" by the federal Cons. He also has some great "art". I'll forward any new articles he writes.

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  3. I am a victim of this. Where do I get help for this.

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  5. I don't care who is involved. The government at all levels participated in this - starting with the land titles office, courthouse, it takes internal fraud at all levels of public sector employees to commit a fraud like this. Of course, they are working with the private sector - banks to carry this fraud through. A government lawyer - Crown Prosecutor, along with the FBI, need to work together to discourage this kind of business. As it negatively affects community, industry, country and all trade of goods and services. It is very sad that a breach of trust has taken place by the federal(all levels) government against it's citizens. Primary responsibility rests with the Federal Ombudsman - Consumer Protection Act.

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  6. I got scammed by a fake lawyer in Ottawa named Athena Basta. I don't know if that is her real name, but she told me she could handle a dispute involving my inheritance - she took my money as a retainer, but never did any work. And because I never got a receipt or an invoice, I cannot prove I hired her as my lawyer. She has a website, but it is very basic and only shows her name, email and phone number. Whenever I call her she hangs up on me. She won't answer emails. Now I need TWO MORE LAWYERS, one to get my inheritance and another so I can sue Athena Basta - who according to google searches isn't even a real lawyer. She is apparently just a debt collector who pretends to be a lawyer. Just a scam artist in my opinion.

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