Thow gets 9 years in prison for $8M fraud

VANCOUVER — Former Victoria investment adviser Ian Thow has been sentenced to nine years in prison for 20 counts of fraud totalling $8-million.

Many of Mr. Thow’s victims watched the sentencing Thursday via video link at Victoria’s downtown courthouse.

Mr. Thow had been charged with 25 counts of fraud stemming from allegations he bilked clients and friends of more than $32-million by persuading them to invest in a variety of schemes, ranging from shares in the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica to short-term loans for developers.

Mr. Thow, 48, has been in custody in Lower Mainland jails for a year.

He was returned to Canada a year ago after being arrested by U.S. marshals as a fugitive in Portland, Ore.

Mr. Thow will spend seven years in prison, getting double time off for the year he’s already served behind bars.

It was still a tougher sentence than most were expecting. Crown and defence lawyers had recommended a seven-year sentence in a joint submission, but Judge Jocelyn Palmer handed Mr. Thow nine years because five of the fraud counts occurred after 2004 when maximum fraud sentences were raised to 14 years from 10.

The sentencing ends a five-year saga that began when Mr. Thow, who was born in the U.S. but raised in Vancouver, fled to the U.S. when his various schemes started to unravel.

The B.C. Securities Commission, which banned Mr. Thow for life from the capital markets and at one point fined him a record $6-million, called Mr. Thow’s actions one of the most callous and audacious frauds in British Columbia’s history.

Prosecutors said Mr. Thow, a former Berkshire Investment Group vice-president, engaged in an “elaborate web” of deceit that preyed upon vulnerable people from 2003 to 2005.

Using his position as a trusted financial adviser, Mr. Thow convinced them to buy shares in the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica or invest in short-term mortgages for developers. Neither the mortgages nor the shares existed.

In some cases, Mr. Thow enticed his victims with ostentatious displays of his wealth. He bought them hockey tickets and meals, took them on trips to Las Vegas or Jamaica, and invited them to his waterfront home in Saanich, B.C.

Victoria Times Colonist