Drayton Valley man charged with fraud

A Drayton Valley man faces criminal charges after allegedly fraudulently raising $200,000 from six investors.

Shaun Wayne Howell has been charged with three counts of fraud and three counts of theft over $5,000, according to a news release from the Alberta Securities Commission and the RCMP.

The charges were laid in connection with incidents alleged to have happened in Red Deer between September 2013 and February 2015.

Howell is scheduled to appear Oct. 26 in Red Deer provincial court. Details of the charges weren’t released.

In 2016, Howell accepted a $500,000 fine and a permanent ban from registration as an investment dealer by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada for breaching industry rules, according to a settlement agreement posted by the organization.

He admitted that between 2008 and 2015, while he worked for RBC Dominion Securities Inc. in Red Deer, he solicited $692,000 from eight clients without the company’s knowledge to invest in such areas as initial public stock offerings and new issues of securities.

However, he put the money into his personal bank account and used it for himself.

He paid about $290,000 to five of the clients for what he falsely claimed was a return on their investment, and gave one client a falsified account statement.