Be a poster head on the television series Hustlers Gamblers Crooks It was never a McKenzie wool goal.
However, that is where Courtenay, BC, Mom found himself last year, sharing a nightmare story of being deceived hundreds of thousands of dollars for the notorious scheme of BC Ponzi Greg Martel.
“It was important because I want to raise awareness about what can happen,” McKenzie told CBC News. “You can fly to Los Angeles and be in these production offices and [being on the show] It was a fun experience. But I would have preferred not to have the loss. “
McKenzie says he lost $ 330,000 for Martel’s scam. She agreed to appear in the Discovery Channel series with the condition that she would not have to speak her name.
“He is a horrible person and does not deserve any glory in this situation,” he said, getting excited. “It has been devastating for many people, a crazy, horrible and serious fraud that has happened here.”
Between 2018 and 2023, Martel received $ 301 million from investors and paid $ 210 million, according to the receiver designated by the Court and the Banking Trust PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). They say that it flew the remaining $ 91 million in commercial options of options, other commercial companies that fail and pay for their extravagant lifestyle.
Unknown whereabouts
Martel disappeared in 2023 amid demands filed by angry investors who want to return their money.
He was in Thailand for a while, then Dubai, but his current whereabouts is unknown, although social networks arise from time to time stating that he has been seen in places like Israel or Mexico.
The authorities in Canada and the United States have issued arrest orders related to contempt to the court, but Martel has not been criminally accused. An investigation carried out by the BC Securities Commission is ongoing.
Recovery time
Earlier this week, lawyers and investors aligned to make presentations to the Judge of the Supreme Court of BC Shelley Fitzpatrick as bankruptcy procedures for Martel and his false company, My Mortgage Aucion Corp., move to the card phase.
A total of 480 calls “winners” and 81 “preferred” investors who benefited from the scheme must pay all earnings except their original investment in a bankruptcy group.
The money recovered will first be to compensate the counters and lawyers who work in the case, and the remaining funds will be distributed among 1,229 investors who lost money, although they are likely to receive cents in the dollar of their original investment.
According to the judicial documents listed by the 561 investors facing Gawbacks, two investors owe more than $ 2 million each, another 14 are in the hook for more than $ 1 million each. The smallest amount on the list is $ 223.10.
Many of those who face the cards say they dispute the PWC calculations, including the resident of the island of Quadra, Damian Richards, who is cited as $ 22,375.52.
Richards says that, according to his financial records, he should not have to pay more than $ 1,000 or $ 2,000 in the bankruptcy group.
“PWC has gone through many financial transactions and accounting records of a company that acted fraudulently from the beginning. So I don’t know how they can trust these numbers,” he said.
‘Anger, resentment, denial’
Richards’s story with Martel dates back to 2020 when he invested an inheritance in the Council of a financial planner. He said that the planner did not disclose at the time her husband worked for Martel.
What worsens things, he says, are the taxes he has paid for the profits that were never made, a situation with which many investors are thanking the tax prosecutors that Martel issued over the years.
“We lost our egg nest,” he said. “I have paid tens of thousands of dollars in taxes on the money I never earned.”
“It has been really difficult to suffer a loss like that. They are all stages of pain (anger, resentment, denial, everything.”
The bankruptcy procedure will continue next month in the Supreme Court of BC in Vancouver.
