The Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada (MFDA) has ordered a former advisor to pay a $175,000 fine, and prohibited him from conducting securities-related business in any capacity over which the MFDA has jurisdiction.

Mohamed Tahir was registered with Worldsource Financial Management Inc. in Ontario between January 2003 and December 2011. Worldsource terminated his employment on Dec. 9, 2011.

Following a disciplinary hearing this week in Toronto, an MFDA hearing panel found that four allegations concerning Tahir had been established.

The first allegation concerned his failure to cooperate with an MFDA investigation by not providing a written statement or producing documents and records requested by MFDA staff in response to client complaints that he may have engaged in unauthorized activity in client accounts and may have misappropriated or failed to account for client monies.

The remaining three allegations dealt with events that occurred between June 2003 and December 2011.

The hearing panel found that Tahir failed to “observe the high standards of ethics and conduct in the transaction of business” and engaged in “conduct unbecoming an Approved person” when he prepared and submitted new account application forms and investment loan applications for a client, which he knew or ought to have known contained false, misleading or incorrect information.

Tahir was also found to have failed to fully explain or omitted to explain the risks, benefits, material assumptions, features and costs of a leveraged investment strategy that he recommended to at least one client, thus failing to ensure his recommendations were suitable and in keeping with the client’s investment objectives.

The panel also found that Tahir failed to ensure the leveraged investment recommendations he made to one client were suitable and in keeping with the client’s investment objectives, with regard to that individual’s relevant “Know your client” information and personal and financial circumstances as well as the dealer member’s requirements regarding the use of leveraging as set out in the member’s policies and procedures.

The investigation was motivated by seven client complaints made to the MFDA concerning Tahir between Mar. 17, 2014 and Oct. 27, 2014. Some of those complaints include allegations that: Tahir solicited and accepted cheques from clients payable to him personally, purportedly to invest those funds on the clients’ behalf but he failed to invest those monies as instructed by the clients or account for those monies; he made unauthorized transfers of cash from one client’s bank account to his own personal bank account and may have misappropriated monies; and he used clients’ monthly contributions to purchase insurance products for clients instead of mutual funds or contributing to clients’ mutual funds, contrary to their instructions.

In addition to the fine and prohibition, the MFDA panel ordered Tahir to pay $10,000 in costs.

He is not currently registered in the securities industry in any capacity.