Bilked victims slowly recovering their losses
Investors in Norbourg Group anxiously awaiting cheques
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/09/2009 (6156 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MONTREAL — Slowly but surely, the 9,200 people Vincent Lacroix bilked out of $115 million through his Norbourg Group are recouping their losses.
Quebec Revenue Minister Robert Dutil announced Thursday the provincial government is delivering on a promise it made in 2006 to turn over any unpaid tax money recovered from Norbourg — in this case, $6.7 million — to those fleeced investors.
Once the cheques are mailed out to Norbourg victims in the next four to six weeks, it will bring the total in compensation paid out to date to nearly $108 million — money that was either recovered or for which the Autorite des marches financiers made good through a special fund.
"We used the means at our disposal to mitigate the human and economic consequences suffered by these people," said Dutil in explaining the province’s action, noting how many people suffered significant losses in the fraud he called unprecedented in Quebec.
The province decided to return to the victims the $6 million in taxes Lacroix paid with money that didn’t belong to him "to demonstrate understanding and show our sympathy for the defrauded investors," Dutil said, adding that more money might be freed up in the future.
The $6 million earned almost $750,000 in interest the past three years.
So far, about 10 per cent of Norbourg victims have benefited from a $31-million financial-services compensation fund managed by the Autorite des marches financiers and financed by dues from Quebec’s 40,000 investment representatives.
About half the victims who had invested in some Norbourg-run mutual funds shared $70 million recovered by government-appointed liquidator Ernst & Young.
All investors will receive compensation, though the amounts will vary based on each individual case. Most will get the better part of their investment back.
Meanwhile a sentencing hearing for the failed financier begins Thursday after Lacroix’s surprising guilty plea on Monday to 200 counts of fraud, conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to commit forgery, fabricating documents and money-laundering over a five-year period.
On Tuesday, Lacroix, 42, sent a two-page letter of apology to his victims via the French-language TVA media outlet.
— Canwest News Service