A former registered submortgage broker, who was sentenced in February to a four-year prison term after exchanging gunfire with police, has been fined $35,000 for submitting fraudulent mortgage applications through his ex-wife.
According to a B.C. Financial Services Authority consent order published on May 28, Siavash Ahmadi agreed to pay a $35,000 administrative penalty as well as $3,500 to the regulator for investigation costs.
This comes after he admitted to submitting “misleading information, including altered income tax statements” to lenders in support of eight mortgage applications “when he ought to have known that the documents were altered and therefore did not represent the true income of the borrowers,” according to the order.
The order also noted Ahmadi “failed to take sufficient steps to verify the accuracy of income information in the mortgage applications he submitted to lenders.” He also failed to report the inaccuracies thereafter.
Ahmadi was registered as a submortgage broker from May 2019 to October 2022 with Verico Paragon Mortgage Inc.
Between January 2020 and January 2021 the order states Ahmadi was “unable to fully conduct business on his own due to personal health issues.”
He in turn registered submortgage broker Ksenia Ivanova, his wife at the time, who became directly involved in his applications.
“Ahmadi accepted financial documentation for his clients from third parties, including but not limited to K. Ivanova, without meeting with the clients directly,” the order stated.
“Ahmadi did not take sufficient steps to confirm the accuracy or authenticity of the documents for the mortgage applications.”
Ivanova was fined $35,000 in October 2022.
Her registration was revoked for at least 10 years after admitting through a consent order that she worked with unregistered submortgage broker Jay Kanth Chaudhary on at least 11 mortgage applications “when she knew or ought to have known that the documents and information were not genuine.”
Ivanova’s transgressions included altering Canada Revenue Agency documents, letters of employment and client paystubs.
Ivanova first became been a registered submortgage broker in May 2015, and her registration was terminated June 10, 2020.
In December 2024 Ivanova agreed to pay another $35,000 fine for unregistered activity in relation to Ahmadi.
According to Ahmadi’s consent order, Ivanova accessed and used Ahmadi’s mortgage submission account in May 2020 without her then-husband’s knowledge or approval to file a mortgage application with inaccurate information.
The regulator described the extent of Ivanova’s altered financial and income documents as “significant,” noting by way of one example that one borrower’s income information was inflated by approximately $298,000 in one year.
Ahmadi’s consent order revealed he separated from Ivanova in March 2021.
While living with his parents in June 2023, Ahmadi was pulled over by West Vancouver police and exchanged gunfire.
He sentenced to four years in prison for impaired driving, unlawfully discharging a firearm and two counts of possessing a loaded restricted firearm. Ahmadi was a hunter and a shooter, and had a licence to possess restricted firearms.
Ivanova is among dozens of brokers and real estate agents who arranged mortgages through Chaudhary, a so-called “shadow” broker who the regulator alleged arranged upwards of $511 million of mortgage loans with lenders based on falsified records.
But nearly eight years after the regulator launched an investigation into this alleged mortgage fraud network, no criminal charges have been laid, BIV confirmed with provincial and Crown prosecutors last March.
CBC reported late last month the regulator was informed in 2024 that a Canada Revenue Agency investigation into Chaudhary was dropped due to a “technicality.”
No further information has been revealed by prosecutors as to why no criminal charges have come from the case.
Chaudhary was summoned to the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in B.C. in February 2021, where he admitted he systemically falsified Canada Revenue Agency documents, job letters and bank statements for mortgage applications brought to him by his network of licensed real estate agents and mortgage brokers.
Commissioner Austin Cullen noted in his final June 2022 report there was no direct evidence Chaudhary’s clients were using proceeds of crime to pay down their mortgages.
Chaudhary gave testimony under guidance from his criminal defence lawyer, Joel Whyshall, who told the commission his client “is the subject of an ongoing investigation, and there is a search warrant being executed on him, and the CRA is investigating, and that matter is in charge approval.”
But charges were never issued against Chaudhary.
Meanwhile, the regulator continues to pursue more brokers and agents after having come to consent agreements with more than a dozen others.
