Bertram Earl Jones (born June 24, 1942) is a Canadian unlicensed investment adviser who pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme that CBC News has reported cost his victims "a conservative estimate of about $51.3 million taken between 1982 and 2009".
[4] The Montreal Gazette reported Jones promised modest, steady returns on investment similar to the scheme by American fraudster Bernard Madoff.
[1] Throughout Jones’ career he developed a vast network of professional and financial liaisons, which included lawyers and notaries, mortgage and insurance brokers, and banks.
While the Crown Prosecutor and Sûreté du Québec investigators could not find sufficient evidence of criminal complicity, pending legal action in the Civil Courts has sought compensation for the victims in the far-reaching fraud.
On July 15, 2010, some of Jones' victims were authorized by a Quebec Superior Court judge to launch a class action suit against his banker, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).
The suit alleges that RBC enabled and assisted Jones to hijack, then fraudulently transfer, withdraw and misappropriate funds of the joint account held by the former client and her deceased mother.
The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada is currently conducting an investigation into the issue, which includes the RBC Dominion Securities advisers involved in the case, Jean Pierre Menard and Serge Leclaire.
[18] On August 2, 2010, lawyers representing another former client in a lawsuit in the Quebec Superior Courts against Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc, amended their Motion to Institute Proceedings to include notary Linda Frazer, a longtime associate of Jones.
[19] The suit alleges the Defendants acted with gross imprudence and negligence in the execution of a mortgage loan against the elderly client's home, which she had no knowledge of signing.