Sorry, Larry, you came to the wrong forum. All investment firms advertising on this site have been thoroughly checked out. They use web servers stationed only at officially approved Nigerian and Lagos bus stations. The only exceptions are those located at Nunavut trading posts and dog sled feeding stations. And they, too, must undergo a rigorous screening before being allowed to sell investments on this site. I'm afraid your talents would be wasted here. Take care.

Donald Trump

http://www.examiner.com/review/crime-pays-well-how-we-lose-billions-to-respected-financial-fraudsters

A 30 minute video and some supporting documents shows how Canadian Securities Commissions give permission to people like Goldman Sachs, Bank Of America, and a few thousand like them to come to Canada, violate our laws, and dump toxic products that they need to dump. It is just like letting them dump toxic waste in our national parks, except it goes into your pension plans and your investments without you even knowing about it.
This is the how, wonder if anyone at the ASC can tell us the why? Not yet.

Larry Elford, Visual Investigations said...
an update from Larry Elford:

www.albertafraud.com is a new site which is specifically dedicated to my "accountability projects". This project assumes that fraud, misrepresentation and breach of trust are still illegal or improper, even if done by politicians or public servants. Since the bankers/financiers cannot seem to be brought under these laws, I will try to bring a class action suit against those politicians and public servants. Yes, you are correct to point out that it is a challenge to sue a public servant, the hurdle to overcome is to prove negligence, gross negligence or conscious wrongdoing. That is a challenge I am willing to undertake. Send me a name if you know of a great, forward thinking Calgary law firm, and I will show them how they can all retire on one case.

he is the guy who wished he had made the film INSIDE JOB by SONY PICTURES. But alas it is a USA based film, and it shows how trillions of dollars were taken without so much as a single police whistle heard so far. See movie trailer by googling Sony pictures INSIDE JOB.

He instead came up through the ranks of the Canadian financial system (twenty years) and made the film BREACH OF TRUST, The Unique Violence of White Collar Crime. It is free, on the net in ten minute chapters at www.breachoftrust.ca For those who don't believe that there are some people in our society who do not follow the same rules and laws as the rest of us, and they get away with it, I ask you to suspend your conventional "wisdom" for a moment or two and view the two films mentioned above. Cheers to your financial health.

As Finance Minister Ted Morton tries to protect the Alberta Securities Commission (ASC), and the ASC desperately tries to protect the investment industry I have to ask a few questions for Mr. Morton:

Who is protecting Alberta investors? It is certainly not you.
Why does the ASC let investment firms violate alberta securities law?
Why are these exemptions granted without notifying the public?
How many investors know that there are more than 500 such legal passes granted each year in Alberta, on investments they may own?

Finance Minister Ted Morton needs to tell the public why he will not answer any of these questions, nor does he require the ASC to answer these questions about the public interest. Investments are a consumer product and the public should be asking exactly why this regulator (and Minister Morton) would allow thousands of investment products to be sold to consumers without meeting the laws. Is there a special form of treatment for financial firms? Is there some kind of exemption from consumer protection laws that we should know of? They are required to act only in the public interest and yet they cannot find an answer to these questions. That is an answer unto itself about the ASC.

Mr. Morton, you are trying to protect a crown agency that has been the subject of years and years of controversy. An agency that has recently allowed $1 billion in toxic, sub prime investments to be sold to Albertans without explanation. Will you tell us why toxic investments were given permission to violate our laws? (see forum topics at www.investoradvocates.ca)

To support regulators whose salaries are paid by the investment industry, and to help cover over a cozy, possibly corrupt relationship between the regulator and the industry is to fail in your duty to the public.

You have earned our vote. Now Mr. Morton will you work to earn our respect?

Further, Mr. Morton, if you are concerned about Alberta jobs, why not simply negotiate a Calgary office location for the new National Securities Regulatory body. That would seem easier to accomplish and perhaps wiser than supporting an already corrupt and negligent regulator, the ASC.

Albertan investors should write their own letter to Finance Minister Ted Morton at Fin-Ent.Minister@gov.ab.ca and copy me with your letter and or any response you may get. See if Mr. Morton will refuse to answer these questions to you as well. I promise to keep track of this matter until investors can be protected like any other consumer, and not preyed upon by regulators who wont show us that they are not on the take. They won't answer a single question posed above.

Larry Elford (former CFP, CIM, FCSI, Associate Portfolio Manager, retired)
lelford@shaw.ca

Lethbridge Alberta, founder and director of www.investoradvocates.ca

The perfect crime, in eight steps. By Larry Elford

Step one
The plan

It is 2005. In a room somewhere in a tower in Toronto, sat the men, finance experts pondering how to profit from markets today. Where is the biggest kill?

“How about this? We create trusts, take investors money and put into the trusts telling them that they are secured investments.........”

In a game of financial “hot potato” substandard investments get artfully passed from sophisticated investors (financial dealers) down to unsophisticated buyers (retail investors). The game is to pass these investments down to the ultimate loser as fast as possible, earn your commission and move on the the next deal.

Along come sub prime mortgages, people betting against those sub prime mortgages, institutions hedging the sub prime notes they already have, people concerned about the upside or the downside of this Asset Backed Commercial Paper.

They cook up these trusts, with cute names such as “Apollo, Rocket, Opus, and Planet”, take money off ordinary Canadians, send it overseas to a German bank as collateral against the sub prime market failing. God only knows what will happen in the end, but we will have our millions in fees, so do we really care? This is dual agency (acting on both sides of the transaction, seller AND trusted advisor) in Canada. Nothing like that is allowed in real estate or other professions, but investments in Canada is still a game of self regulation, which in other words means, “anything goes”.

Step two
The con

These trusts do not qualify to be sold under most securities law in canada, so we need to put some lipstick on the pig with two items. First we need to have a better credit rating, and second, we need to get the securities commissions to look the other way for a little while. The credit rating agencies are for sale, so that one is easy. Luckily there is a loophole in the securities regulatory system that grants the regulators the “discretion” to hold sway over the law from time to time. So this too will be a breeze. These so-called “regulators” get to “sell” permission slips to violate the securities act. This happens every day in Canada, to practically every sales organization in the country, and the beauty is that “there is no provision in the act that says we have to notify the public” when we do this. (OSC quote) What a gift!

Step three
The insiders

We approach friends at one of 13 securities commissions.
We pay their salaries so we have an easy entrance. Thank god for self regulation.

One of the gifts of self regulations is that we appoint, pay and some would say “own” the regulators of financial products in Canada. That makes it a simple matter of paperwork and an exchange of money to get these same financial regulators to approve of something called a “legal exemption”. Simply put, we apply at the easiest or closest securities commission for permission to sell these “hot potato” investments which cannot otherwise be sold. They do not meet our laws without this exemptive relief. All 13 securities commissions grant the relief, since all of them depend on the millions of dollars of revenue that we pay them for just this kind of thing. Presto! An otherwise illegal investment is turned into a legal one, and we do not even have to notify the public that we took this hidden step.

The second gift given to those who “self regulate” is a little game in Canada called the “passport” system, whereby if one securities commission approves of a legal exemption, typically (and for money) the other twelve will go along without question. We are told that the passport system enables a smoother flow of securities rules across thirteen jurisdictions but what it does best is assist in the flow of financial abuse across those jurisdictions.

Step four
The crime
We dump this product immediately onto other dealers like National Bank, Cannacord capital etc, knowing that they will “dispose” of the corpse by pushing it off onto unsuspecting retail investors. City treasury’s, mom and pop investors, university’s etc. Their “retail sales force” motivated by commissions and loyalty to the company, get into high gear, get on the phone and start calling the suckers, er customers that they hope to unload this product on. It must be noted and applauded that in Canada TD Bank was one of the only financial dealers who did not try to ride this gravy train. Thank you TD.

Step five
The lookouts

You always need to be on the lookout for the cops, even when you have “legal permission” to break the law. It just pays to cover all the bases.
In that respect our highly regarded regulators and self regulators have made their way into the RCMP and onto something called “joint management committee’s” inside the commercial crime division, the IMET. (Integrated Market Enforcement Team) With our own industry people, from our own industry associations so carefully placed, and above examination, we can “help” to ensure that the right people do not get criminally investigated.

Osc, iiroc, other industry groups working inside the RCMP. Sitting on joint management committees, to “help” the RCMP.

Step six
The cleanup man


To put additional insurance on making sure that the right people do not get charged for this perfect crime, we need a “cleanup man”. The mafia-like guy who can dispose of any traces of the crime, any bodies (figuratively speaking, this crime involved no loss of life). In the United states when the sub prime crime reared its head, there was involvement by the president, FBI, Treasury secretary, Federal reserve as well as congressional hearings and senate hearings to question the culprits. Here in Canada, all those people turned away for some reason. Also turning away were the self regulators, the securities commissions (who granted the permission to violate our laws). Perhaps they should be afraid of being investigated themselves?

No, the person chosen to clean up the mess, and try to make sure the right people do not get hurt was a private lawyer, chosen for his ability and his connections in doing this kind of thing. Previously he had involvement in tobacco smuggling operations, called the largest fraud in Canada by the RCMP) and he was able to get himself and senior exec’s free of criminal matters in this case. A fine of one billion against the company, (Imperial Tobacco) while he was the president of the parent company. So there is your experienced cleanup man.
The fist thing he does is to try and negotiate immunity from civil and criminal prosecution for the “boys” in the back-room. He succeeds in getting civil immunity for the boys but criminal immunity is not allowed. Not to worry, as the odds of any police in Canada investigating this one are slim to none. Remember that we have some of “our boys” on the inside at the RCMP.

Step seven
The penalty

One half of one cent for every dollar missing. Not bad.
After the cleanup, after the damage control, after negotiations for immunity, and a great deal of government money to pay back investors, the securities commissions awake from their slumber, feel that it might be safe to poke theirs heads up, and take some perceived action. They know that 99% of Canada still does not know that they granted permission in the first place to allow this product to be sold, so they feel pretty smug in stepping up and imposing “pretend” penalties on the culprits. Little dow we know of the incestuous relationship between the culprits and the “regulators”. Susan Wolbergh Jenah was the vice chair of the OSC when she was busy signing her name to legal exemptions to allow these dubious products to be sold without meeting our laws. Then a few years later she moves to the head of the IIROC (gang of investment dealers) and lo and behold she comes out and says that the dealers did not know what they were selling?? I wonder if she had a clue when she allowed them to be sold, or if she was just happy doing what she was told in order to collect a $400,000 salary at the time. Her new salary at IIROC went to $700,000. It is amazing what you can buy with a six figure salary. Do not go to jail. Collect $32 billion.

Step eight
The profit

99.5 cents profit on every dollar taken. “Shoot, I was hoping for 99.9%”, you could almost hear the investment dealers say. “We will have to give the securities commission people a $100,000 raise in salary so they get it “right” next time”.

The fines imposed amount to a huge number in the newspapers, but in actual fact amount to less than one half of one penny for each and every dollar missing. $32 billion missing. Hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to the manufacturers, sellers, lawyers, regulators, receivers, mafia-type cleanup man, and so on. And nobody can be sued, nobody going to jail.

$32 billion is not quite equal to the cost of each and every other crime in the country, combined. Just about. Also just about the cost of running the province of Alberta every year. From one crime. One set of legal exemptions.

It is hoped that Canada gets an improved securities regulatory system soon, as it is unlikely that the country can afford to let the most cunning, clever financial people people police themselves any longer on the honor system.

www.breachoftrust.ca
www.investoradvocates.ca

Hi Larry,
Thanks for posting this information so as to answer our questions.
I'm sure you'll be available if anybody else has questions.

Hello all, this is larry elford with an attempt at an answer to Monty's good question.

I am a former broker, having worked inside the largest bank owned brokerage firms from 1984 to 2004. I am a slow learner so it took me about ten years to get on my feet and comfortable in the business, so it was early 1990's before I started to understand how the top commission brokers in my office were churning, burning, double dipping or a myriad of other ways to maximize commissions and violate the trust and vulnerability of their clients.

I started a blog which I don't update much anymore, but is still on the record and still found at http://www.investoradvocate.blogspot.com It was intended to educate and warn the public about ways to protect from financial predators. (I had left my work for an early retirement by this time due to a fairly high level of management retaliation for my speaking out about ethics and integrity in the industry)
My more active work at protecting and educating the public is found on a forum found at http://www.investoradvocates.ca It is for professionals to comments safely on best practices in the industry and on things that are going on which they do not approve of.
When an investment industry employee (from saskatoon) took his own life under industry and legal retaliation beyond imagination, for trying to speak out about client abusive practices.......I decided to go beyond a blog or forum.
I crossed the country interviewing former OSC lawyers, an attorney general, investment victims, investment experts etc. to try and put together an insiders view of the ethical shortcomings within the financial industry.
Not everyone likes the thought of an insider speaking out about crimes and abuses within their industry, so I have found myself under considerable attack, personal and professional, by persons whose commission or salary is dependent on keeping such things silent.
My doc film project is found on you tube and also freely available online to all those interested at http://www.breachoftrust.ca

Since the rough completion of my film project, some $30 million in my city has gone missing with ABCP investment paper. In Alberta it is over $1 billion total. For all of Canada it is some $32 billion. I speak publicly to community groups, legislators, MLA's, Seniors organizations, Parliamentary Committees about the aspects of crimes like this, how easily they are to complete, and how there is little to no police enforcement over a level of roughly $10 million in crime size. If you want to get rich quick in Canada, and get away with it, I can demonstrate, using true examples, how easy it is to perpetrate white collar crime which will never come to the attention of the police. If you or your community group (lions, Kiwanis, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce etc) would like to see and hear an inside story of how the financial industry can truly make crime pay, then I am free of charge to lend my experience to the public interest.
Thanks Monty for letting me have the opportunity to inform people about myself, and thank you for vetting and curtailing personal attacks by those industry folks who are operating under a great deal of fear from my message.
larry
http://www.breachoftrust.ca ( redirects to http://web.me.com/lelford/breachoftrust.ca/Welcome.html )

There use to be someone by this name who accused the brokers of breaking the fiduciary relationship to their clients. [[Edited by Monty Loree for defamatory comments]]

Because the link is a web.me.com page I didn't click on it as this is my secure computer but the breach of trust would imply this would be the same person. Not sure what he is up to or whatever happened to his lawsuit.

I saw an ad on Facebook that had the caption.. "Legally Steal A Billion Dollars" It gives a link to this page.

http://web.me.com/lelford/breachoftrust.ca/Ch_8,_Solutions,_The_end.html

It appears the Larry Elford has been in the investing business one way or another for over 30 years. Has anybody followed Larry.?

What's he up to?