Alberta man took investor money to buy Vernon home
An Alberta man is due to face steep consequences after he used almost $1 million of investor money to buy his Vernon home.
Logan Keith Shaw raised the cash from six investors in his numbered company in 2012, ostensibly for a business venture in Mexico, but used almost all of it to buy the home, according to an Alberta Securities Commission decision published earlier this month.
At the time, Shaw was living in Grand Prairie but once he convinced investors to get behind is plan to supply Mexican taxis with point-of-sale machines, he moved to Vernon and dropped $807,000 on the home. He used much of the remainder to pay credit card bills and other expenses.
The Mexican business venture never went ahead.
At a recent hearing, Shaw raised no defence.
"In his investigative interview, Shaw's answers to direct questions were generally evasive, non-responsive, and obtuse,” according to the decision. "He often claimed no memory of the specific subject of the questions posed.”
His actions at the hearing appear to have baffled the commission, who were left to try to discern for themselves what he might have been thinking.
"The only possible position we could discern was that Shaw perhaps believed that he could treat money raised by (his numbered company) as his own and that he perhaps intended to pay investors their principal and some interest... from business operations (if the business were to have any success) or from other sources of funds (perhaps including investments by others in the future),” commissioners wrote.
It’s taken 10 years to officially unravel the fraud, but Shaw and investors from B.C. and Alberta will have to wait to find out what the Alberta regulator plans to do about it.
They're due back for another hearing next month to determine next steps.
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