For three decades, Miles Burton Marshall sold his Hamilton neighbors an eight percent return backed by rental houses he could point to from the sidewalk. The houses were real. The math behind them was not.
For a few weeks this spring, the retirees who trusted Ken Mattson with their savings were told the trial would not happen. On Thursday, that promise dissolved.
A federal jury in South Carolina convicted Demani and Tanya Bosket this week in a transnational email-compromise ring that drained more than $25 million from people in the middle of the largest transactions of their lives. The pitch was not a pitch. It was a forwarded thread.
Montreal police arrested four men this week in a $4.5M alleged real estate fraud that turned debt-relief ads into deeds. The victims walked into a notary's office. They walked out without their homes.
An Edmonton police investigation alleges Curtis Quigley and Kathleen Treadgold sold promissory notes tied to real estate flips for twelve years. The houses were the story. The seniors who lost their money were the inventory.
A Calgary realtor sold bridge loans for real estate deals that never existed. Four years later, Alberta's regulator cut the largest assurance fund cheque in its forty-year history. It covered less than half the loss.