‘Every day the number was growing’

Peter Lin was among a handful of investors who alerted the Ontario Securities Commission to Toronto businessman Weizhen Tang in late February 2009.

On March 18, 2009, the province’s securities watchdog issued a cease trading order, prohibiting Tang from trading stocks.

Just 10 days after that, Lin and 89 other investors signed a petition demanding that the securities commission lift the trading ban and allowing Tang to resume trading, a provincial court heard Tuesday.

Tang has pleaded not guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000. The fraud is alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2009.

Tang billed himself as the “Chinese Warren Buffett” and promised returns of 1 per cent a week. The OSC alleges that Tang collected as much as $30 million from more than 100 investors from Canada and the U.S., through his company, Overseas Chinese Fund Limited Partnership, and that he used money from new investors to pay out early investors.

The trial is being held before a jury, and Tang is representing himself with the assistance of a court-appointed lawyer.

Lin told the court through an interpreter that he started investing with Tang in January, 2008 and invested a total of $630,000.

He began logging to his computer on every business day after the close of markets, to check his account’s updated balance.

“All day I just waited for 4 o’clock to come,” Lin testified. “On the days I didn’t see it, I called at 4:30 p.m. and said, ‘Why is it late today?’ ”

By early February, 2009, his balance had topped $1 million.

“Every day the number was growing. I was very happy. I told this to my friends and family,” he testified.

But just a few weeks later, after Tang lost money during a live trading demonstration, investors began to pull their money out.