Vancouver: A British Columbia Securities Commission panel has found that a Vancouver woman and two companies she controlled committed a $100 million fraud. The panel found that between approximately 2003 and January 2012, Rashida Samji, a former notary public, perpetrated a fraud when she traded securities to 200 or more investors for proceeds of at least $100 million.
The panel found that Samji ran a Ponzi scheme. She told investors that she would hold their money in trust and that it would be used only to secure letters of comfort for the financing of a British Columbia winery. Investors were to earn fees for securing the letters of credit.
Instead, the panel found, the so-called investment was “one big lie” and “a monumental deceit”. There was no winery involved, no letters of comfort, nor any fees. Samji did not hold investors’ money in trust, but used it to pay returns to other investors, and for her own use.
