Fool's gold: Caught BC pyramid schemers must pay back nearly $1M

After promising investors significant returns on gold mining operations in Africa and Brazil that didn’t exist, a handful of people caught in a pyramid scheme will have to pay up.

According to a release from the BC Securities Commission (BCSC) – an independent provincial government agency that regulates capital markets in BC via the Securities Act – three BC residents will have to pay nearly a million dollars after their involvement in an “elaborate” fraud scheme.

A BCSC panel ordered the three to pay a combined total of nearly $956,000, and all three are banned from participating in BC’s investment market.

Sabrina Ling Huei Wei
- to pay a $500,000 administrative penalty, plus $90,000, representing the amount she obtained from the scheme
- permanent ban
Justin Colin Villarin
- to pay a $200,000 penalty, plus the $15,718 he obtained from the scheme
- 25-year ban
James Bernard Law
- to pay a $150,000 penalty
- 20-year ban

Investors were sold on high, no-risk returns on “supposedly lucrative gold mining operations in Mali and Brazil,” said BCSC.

But no investments were used for gold mining and the only source of money was coming from investors. There were no legitimate business activities at all, according to bank records.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) called it a Ponzi and pyramid scheme, orchestrated out of the US by a Brazilian national, Daniel Fernandes Rojo Filho, living in Florida.

The scheme raised more than USD$15 million from more than 1,400 investors. The BCSC found that 137 BC residents or people connected to the province lost $1.5 million.

Investors’ money was used for Filho’s personal expenses and luxury cars.

This is the end of a long road that began back in 2015 when, acting on a tip, BCSC investigators posed as investors and attended a presentation. They warned that the claims made at the presentation were huge red flags for investment fraud.

Back in October 2022, after days of hearings, a BCSC panel ruled that Wei, Villarin, and Law “chose to enable Filho’s deceitful acts, and knew – or should have known – that Filho’s claims, and theirs, were fraudulent,” said BCSC.

“Although they became increasingly aware of red flags surrounding DFRF, including the promise of unreasonably high returns, the lack of details about its finances or mines, and the BCSC’s investor alert, Wei, Law, and Villarin continued to promote it to unwitting investors,” said BCSC.

You can learn more about investing safely via BCSC’s InvestRight resources online.

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