More on TRBD's former director, Nick Masee, from the Canadian magazine "Report on Business:
robmagnet.com
in reading the following excerpt, recall that the current management, Chairman Halimi and Vice Chairman Nowek, have been serving since Oct. 1993, which overlaps with the tenure of Masee as director of TRBD:
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Masee, formerly of the Bank of Montreal, was the private banker to some of the biggest players on the VSE, including millionaire promoter Harry Moll, famous for his Cross Pacific Pearls company which planned-and failed-to grow the world's biggest pearl in a Honolulu shopping centre; legendary promoter Murray Pezim, discoverer of the Hemlo gold mine and former owner of the B.C. Lions football team; and flamboyant real estate and sports tycoon Nelson Skalbania, sentenced, in February, 1997, to a year in jail for theft, specifically, diverting $100,000 in a former business associate's trust fund to his personal use. Masee was privy to plenty of insider secrets and he was known for keeping his mouth shut.
At the time of his disappearance, in August, 1994, Masee, described by friends as "a community-minded guy who didn't have an enemy in the world," was retired from the bank and working as a director of a VSE company called Turbodyne Technologies Inc., which was supposed to be developing a less polluting breed of diesel engine. Turbodyne was formerly controlled by Harry Moll, who had been banned from the VSE for life after the collapse in 1992 of his company, Pineridge Capital Group Inc.
Little is known about Masee's disappearance. On Wednesday, August 10, he and his wife made a reservation for dinner at Trader Vic's, at the Westin Bayshore. Supposedly, they were the guests of an unnamed businessman who was considering putting $10 million into Masee deals. The potential client was sending a limousine for them. There is no record of a limo rental sent to the Masee address and the couple never arrived at the restaurant, where they were well known.
The next morning, Lisa Masee called her husband's office and the hairdressing salon where she worked and told them the couple were taking a few days off. That was the last anyone has ever heard from them. After the weekend passed with no word from the Masees, friends and family became concerned. It was unlike Lisa to stay out of contact and Masee's friend, Walter Davidson, the former speaker of B.C.'s Legislative Assembly, left several messages on the Masee answering machine. Uncharacteristically, none were returned. "When I called his office, and they told me he was point-blank missing...at that point I went over to the RCMP," says Davidson.
When investigators reached the Masee home on the elegant North Shore, they discovered the door unlocked and the top-of-the-line security system unset. Masee's luxury Chrysler LeBaron was in the driveway, and the family cat-to whom both Masees were devoted-was unfed inside the house. Did the Masees go willingly, leaving the door unlocked, a most odd act for a man everyone describes as extremely cautious and security-conscious? If they were kidnapped, no ransom demand was ever made.
Walter Davidson believes they were indeed kidnapped and murdered, possibly by an irate client from Masee's banking days. "Fish food" is his comment. There were rumours about Masee covering a client's Las Vegas gambling losses but Masee's son, Nick Jr., says the debts were discussed with him and were "no problem." Ozzie Kaban, a long-time Howe Street private investigator hired by Nick Masee Jr. to look into the disappearance, is tepidly convinced that Masee orchestrated his own exit and that Masee and Lisa are "sitting in the sunshine somewhere in Belize."
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