The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has agreed to a permanent market ban, along with financial sanctions, for a former advisor accused of participating in an advance fee scheme.
Earlier this week, the OSC approved a settlement with Lorne Banks for his role in a scam involving Global Consulting and Financial Services, Global Capital Group, Crown Capital Management, and Michael Chomica.
Under the deal, Banks will be permanently banned from the markets, pay $25,000 in disgorgement and a $50,000 penalty.
According to the settlement, Banks, who was registered with the OSC between 1988 and 1991, solicited investors to participate in an advance fee scam. He was not registered while the scam was taking place in 2010. In his deal with the OSC, Banks admits to trading without registration and facilitating a fraud.
Earlier this year, Michael Chomica was sentenced to two years in jail after pleading guilty to three counts of fraud, and admitting to being the architect of two fraudulent advance-fee schemes that targeted investors in Ontario, Europe, the UK, Africa and Asia, as well as arranging for bank accounts to be used in a third scheme. (See Investment Executive, Securities fraudster pleads guilty, Mar. 14, 2013.)
The OSC says that investors lost approximately $591,470 in combined U.S. and Canadian funds as a result of the three schemes.