Real-estate council pays $70,000 to victim of alleged fraud
INVESTIGATION: Woman paid $70,000 in compensation in alleged real-estate fraud
A single mom has been paid nearly $70,000 in compensation by the Real Estate Council of B.C. after she was allegedly defrauded of $100,000 by suspended Vancouver realtor Dacheng (Damon) Wan and convicted fraudster Ayaz Dhanani.
Details of the case — dubbed “extremely serious” in a cease-anddesist order from B.C.’s registrar of mortgage brokers — involve alleged con artists, bank drafts, currency exchanges and a risky home investment.
It’s the second alleged transaction discovered by The Province involving Dhanani and Vancouver realtors. And the registrar warned in 2014: “It is reasonable to assume that Mr. Dhanani may continue to deceive others in a similar way.”
Wan — who was indicted in September 2015 along with Dhanani on charges of fraud over $5,000 — had his licence suspended in April 2014 after a probe by B.C.’s Financial Institutions Commission (FICOM) was submitted to the B.C. Real Estate Council.
SEE EBY, SMYTH, Page 6
Compensation-hearing documents say that in October 2014 the council paid Wan’s client $66,570 for losses caused by Wan. She had already recovered $33,429 from the Crown through bank seizures related to Wan’s accounts.
The alleged victim told investigators she wanted to move from her Vancouver condo into a milliondollar Burnaby home that Wan had shown her so she could live together with her daughter and her retired parents. Council documents say the alleged victim, who was interviewed by The Province but asked not to be named, has lost her trust in others.
“Mr. Wan was a full participant in the fiction in relation to a mortgage application that was ultimately never made,” the council heard. “(The victim’s) loss occurred because of the fact that Mr. Wan was providing her with real-estate services to buy the property ... ”
The alleged victim hired Wan after meeting him at a condo showing in late 2013 about six months after he started working for Sutton Group West Coast Realty, filings say.
After he showed her a Burnaby home, she was ready to make an offer, but her mortgage application was rejected by her bank because her income was insufficient.
She told Wan she lacked financing and Wan told her about his “good friend” Ayaz Dhanani, who he said was a “millionaire” professional mortgage broker and had completed deals for Wan’s other clients, council evidence states.
Wan arranged for the three to meet on Jan. 23, 2014, at a restaurant in the Shangri-La Hotel, filings say.
A week later, they met again and Dhanani told her he could help her secure a mortgage for $750,000 and refinance her existing condo mortgage. Dhanani advised her to open an account at BlueShore Financial and make out a bank draft for $100,000 payable to the credit union. She met Dhanani again and convinced herself he was so rich that $100,000 would mean nothing to him, council evidence states. After she gave Dhanani a bank draft for $100,000, it was deposited in Wan’s personal account at BlueShore Financial, according to FICOM.
The woman eventually learned no mortgage application was made, filings say, and complained to FICOM and the Vancouver police. An officer informed her that Dhanani was a “known fraudulent criminal,” council evidence states.
FICOM’s probe showed the $100,000 bank draft was sent from Wan’s BlueShore account to his TD Canada Trust account and then new drafts were sent to Vancouver Bullion Currency Exchange.
The drafts were converted into U.S. dollars and paid to Dhanani, Wan and an unidentified third party. The currency exchange informed FICOM that Dhanani made previous transfers using his name and a number of aliases. Wan didn’t respond to interview requests.
Council spokeswoman Marilee Peters said compensation documents were released to The Province under special circumstances.
“As a result of the hearing decision, it is the council’s view that the privacy issues which led to the redaction of Mr. Wan’s name in (a ceaseand-desist order) no longer apply, and we have decided to release his name in response to your question,” Peters said in an email.
The Province reported recently that in December 2014 Dhanani and another Vancouver realtor, Liang Ming Wei, were involved in a complex “real-estate transaction,” according to evidence in a B.C. Securities Commission fraud hearing.
A bank draft for $120,000 allegedly defrauded from a Vancouver dentist by Dhanani was passed through a Richmond currency exchange and deposited by Wei in his Chinese client’s West Vancouver bank account to fund a Vancouver home purchase, case filings said. Wei’s actions as a realtor aren’t being investigated, said the Real Estate Council of B.C.