VANCOUVER STOCK EXCHANGE PROMOTERS A DYING BREED
By KEITH DAMSELL
Financial Post
ÿ VANCOUVER -- Sometime during the crisp early evening of Jan. 14, disgraced Vancouver stock promoter David Ward double-parked his white Nissan Pathfinder on a quiet suburban street in the east end of Vancouver.
ÿ He apparently didn't plan to stay long because he left the headlights on and the engine running.
ÿ And he wasn't alone. As he sat behind the wheel, someone shot Ward in the head at close range, execution style.
ÿ Whoever did it then hurried away, leaving behind the cash and jewelry Ward was carrying.
ÿ Ward, a key figure in one of the Vancouver Stock Exchange's most notorious scandals, was found the next morning and immediately granted statistical notoriety: He was the city's first murder victim of 1997.
ÿ The circumstances of Ward's death are extraordinary but not unheard of in Canada's speculative investment capital.
ÿ In fact, the ex-promoter's demise is merely the latest addition to a thick file covering murder and mayhem among the Howe Street stock exchange's fallen stars.
ÿ Since 1968, more than a dozen of the city's promoters and brokers have been shot, beaten, murdered or simply disappeared.
ÿ One such victim, wash stock promoter Guy LaMarche, 50, was shot to death in Toronto's Royal York Hotel in 1987.
ÿ His killer was later charged with second-degree murder.
ÿ Nonetheless, most of the cases remain unsolved by police.
ÿ And staunch critics of the city's at-times seamy securities industry maintain that Ward won't be the last name added to the list.
ÿ "It's part of a historical continuum," says stock market investigator and VSE critic Adrian du Plessis, who describes white-collar violence as a city subculture.
ÿ "It's not a particularly refined or pin- stripe, button-down world. It's still the wild west," du Plessis says, adding that, in 1989, he received a death threat from an unidentified man.
ÿ "I've never heard of so many people being killed systematically on Bay Street," the investigator says.
ÿ Vancouver, the city Forbes magazine dubbed "the scam capital of the world" in 1989, remains a popular destination for white-collar criminals.
ÿ The VSE attracts millions of dollars of very liquid, high-risk capital every year and, sometimes, few questions are asked.
ÿ As well, highly speculative junior stocks with small floats are far easier to manipulate than the blue-chip giants of Bay Street.
ÿ "The more junior the market ... the more attractive to anyone considering a stock scheme," says Sgt. John Sliter of the RCMP's economic crime branch in Ottawa.
ÿ Sliter is the author of a 1994 report that shed much light on widespread criminal interference in junior markets across Canada.
ÿ And when a stock scam goes bad, Howe Street junkies can turn elsewhere for easy money.
ÿ Press reports have linked several VSE brokers and promoters to drugs and money laundering.
ÿ Despite the growing number of unsolved crimes linked to the securities industry, Sgt. Sliter says he "feels encouraged" when he considers Howe Street.
ÿ More money is being poured into enforcement and regulation. The B.C. Securities Commission has formed a five-member securities fraud office, while the RCMP's local commercial crime unit has boosted its staff count to 15 from 10.
ÿ In addition, B.C. officials are working closely with colleagues across Canada to develop a market-integrity software system that will help weed out criminals. |
