Victims of two cross-border investment schemes will get almost 70% of the US$22.6 million the B.C. Securities Commission froze from Vancouver bank and brokerage accounts back in 2000.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered that US$15.2 million of funds from the Vancouver bank accounts of Exchange Bank and Trust Inc. (EBT) be given to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for distribution back to the victims of illegal schemes connected to Edward Durante and Stephen Sayre.
In 2000, the BCSC froze the accounts of EBT, a West Indies-based private investment bank, after the securities commission alleged that Durante and Sayre had violated U.S. and Canadian securities laws by conducting manipulative trading. Durante and Sayre are now serving prison sentences in the U.S.