[UPDATED] Why Is This Con-Artist Dancing? Because The BC Securities Commission Sucks…

Ha! He called the BCSC- what a maroon!

UPDATE: In the end, during the second investigation into Gregory Carrington, David Baines helped bring him to justice. In retrospect, after writing this article, I was a little hard on Baines- BC is the securities fraud capital of the world, and he has a hard job keeping on-top of things. Regardless, Carrington is busted now, and hopefully no others will be subjected to his criminality in the future.

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I ran across a perverse advertisement for the British Columbia Securities Commission. Not perverse in a soft-porn sense like a TIDES Canada video, thank god. It’s much more perverse than that- it’s a propaganda video that misrepresents one of BC’s most inept law enforcement organizations as if they were effective.

When I say inept I’m being kind. We could only wish they were simply inept- the reality is that their ineptness (long ago) crossed the line into being a danger to BC (and consequently the rest of Canada). How bad are they? Glad you asked- they are, in fact, so bad that BC has become a global laughing stock for the poor quality of securities law enforcement.

I learned about the BCSC working as a technical director in a company that was fleecing its investors. I was a whistleblower, the first staff member to bring evidence to them about the fraud. When I went to their office for our first meeting they told me they had been investigating the company for some time. The problem is that they really didn’t know that much- including some of the basics that were already publicly available.

When I realized how inept they were I took the next step and called David Baines, the Vancouver Sun’s ‘intrepid’ securities fraud reporter. I was told that Baines was the man to talk to, and he was- but, there was nothing he could to to help us (the employees & victims I’d been working with).

But, what he had to tell me blew my mind…

Our story was a ‘non-story’ for the Vancouver Sun. First, frauds like what happened with my employer are a dime a dozen, and hardly worth reporting. More importantly, he had practically zero confidence that the BCSC would be able to act- despite the fact there were 10′s of millions of hard working people’s dollars stolen. He called the BCSC ‘toothless’ and told me we were wasting our time.

In the BCSC’s video they depict a con-artist on the phone with one of his victims. The victim has obviously figured out that he was being ripped-off and was trying to get him to give him his money back. The con-artist brushes him off and responds with a ‘the cheque’s in the mail’ tactic. So, the investor starts to get tough and threatens to call the BCSC.

In real-life this would be the point where the con-artist starts laughing hysterically to the point of spitting-up phlegm on the camera lens. It’s very obvious that the actor playing the con-artist has never had to turn to the BCSC for help- if he had, he’d probably not be able to play that part with a straight face. The world’s greatest actors would be challenged if they were in that position.

In real life, when the con-artist hears the knock on the door at the end of the video, his only fear would be vigilante justice. In the case of the company I blew the whistle on there were no arrests or charges laid. It was only earlier this year that the CEO got arrested- but, that was two scams later…

So, who cares? We’re talking about bankers ripping off bankers- right? Not quite, it isn’t as much the bankers who are getting ripped off in BC as it is the 99%. It’s mom, and pop, grandma & grandpa who lose their investments- banks have resources to investigate the claims of who they invest in.

The BCSC is a wart on BC’s economy, they are ineffective and dangerous. It’s really time for a change- and, with an election coming, now is the perfect opportunity for some enthusiastic candidate to campaign on a platform for fixing it. I can think of the perfect campaign slogan for them:

“It’s time for BC to get its dignity back…”.