More than $10 million will be returned to investors who lost money in an illegal distribution scheme after the Supreme Court of British Columbia appointed a receiver to distribute frozen funds in the case, the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) announced on Wednesday.
The court issued an order appointing Grant Thornton Ltd. as receiver in the case to distribute funds that were recovered from Bossteam E-Commerce Inc., and the couple that was behind the scheme, Yan Zhu (aka Rachel Zhu) and Guan Qiang Zhang.
The BCSC froze bank accounts that collectively held US$9.7 million and almost C$300,000; the regulator collected another C$122,810 from the sale of land owned by Zhu. Grant Thornton will administer the process to return these funds to investors.
In 2014, a BCSC hearing panel found that “Bossteam, Zhu, and Zhang committed fraud, illegally distributed securities, and withheld information from BCSC investigators.”