B.C. Fraudster Francis Biller Gets Caught by SEC over Colombia Boiler Room Scheme
Posted on 03/17/2022
On March 15, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against five individuals for allegedly operating a call center in Medellin, Colombia, which used high pressure sales tactics and made false and misleading statements to retail investors to convince them to buy the stocks of small companies trading in the U.S. markets.
According to the SEC’s complaint, filed on March 14, 2022, U.S. citizen Chester Alvarez, Canadian citizens Francis Biller, Raymond Dove, and Troy Gran-Brooks, and Dutch citizen Justin Plaizier operated call centers, set up as phony investment management firms, with fake names, websites, and phone numbers. The SEC’s complaint alleges that, using the false personas, the defendants orchestrated a pump-and-dump scheme and made false and misleading statements when they promoted the stock of at least 18 issuers, and that they generated more than US$ 58 million in trading from this scheme. The complaint also alleges that the defendants were paid approximately $10 million for promoting thinly traded stocks, which they misled investors to believe had high prospects for success.
Francis Biller pled guilty to four counts of theft and fraud in British Columbia back in 2005. At that time, Biller was sentenced to three years in prison, in connection with the failure of Eron Mortgage Corporation which saw investors lose an estimated C$ 170 million. Following his criminal conviction, Biller was permanently banned by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). In 1999, Eron Mortgage and its key executives have been found guilty of perpetrating one of the biggest swindles in Canadian history. The British Columbia Securities Commission estimated that 3,200 investors, most of them from B.C., lost C$ 170 million.
