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Thread: Vanishing act: Fugitive from justice, one-time realtor pursued by Private Investigator

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    Vanishing act: Fugitive from justice, one-time realtor pursued by Private Investigator

    Breaking news:

    A former Vancouver realtor has disappeared, and nobody seems to know where he is. Not past associates who say they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to him, not the police who obtained a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest, not the private investigator who has been tracking him, not the Vancouver real estate brokerage where he once worked, not even his wife.


    (Passport photo of former Vancouver realtor Howard Chong, who is wanted on a Canada wide warrant for alleged fraud.)

    Howard Chong, 39, presented different faces to the different people named as victims in the criminal indictment charging him with 10 counts of fraud and theft, according to a private investigator who pursued him.

    Chong portrayed himself as a Chinese pop musician and songwriter, and even as an authorized representative of a “prestigious Hong Kong-based investment service,” says the private investigator’s report. Some of Chong’s associates knew him to wear fine suits. Others said he usually dressed in Lululemon. He drove around town in a black BMW M4, and presented himself as a realtor — and was licensed as one — although, apparently, he never completed any real estate transactions.

    Investigators who worked on Chong’s case described it as especially complex.

    Chong’s weight, hair and stories changed frequently, said Denis Gagnon, a private investigator hired by one of the alleged victims.


    (West Vancouver private investigator Denis Gagnon is searching, on behalf of a client, for missing Vancouver realtor and fraudster Howard Chong. Due to the sensitive nature of his work, Gagnon’s identity is withheld.)

    “He’s like a chameleon,” Gagnon said.

    A mutual friend’s introduction
    Parts of Gagnon’s report were filed in B.C. Supreme Court in connection with a civil lawsuit launched by the man who hired him, a Coquitlam accountant named Evan Jiang. Jiang filed suit in September 2015 seeking to recover the $300,000 he alleges he lost to Howard Chong, also known as Yin-Hou Chong, in a “fraudulent” investment agreement. Chong never filed a response. In May 2016, Jiang won a default judgment from the court, ordering Chong to pay costs plus damages.

    In May 2017, Chong was charged with 10 counts of theft and fraud over $5,000, crimes alleged to have taken place in Richmond between 2013 and 2015 involving seven different victims. The day RCMP Cpl. Jagmeet Dandiwal swore the charges in provincial court in Richmond, he also asked for an arrest warrant, affirming there were “probable grounds to believe that it is necessary in the public interest to issue this warrant for the arrest of the accused.”

    A justice of the peace granted the Canada-wide warrant immediately.

    Later that day, Dandiwal emailed Jiang, thanking him for his “assistance and patience during this complex and lengthy investigation.”

    The criminal charges filed in court don’t specify dollar amounts for the alleged frauds and thefts, but Gagnon wrote in his report that other alleged victims listed in the indictment told him they lost six-figure amounts.

    The Province tried to contact Chong through five email addresses and three phone numbers listed for him in various court filings, but received no response after several weeks. The RCMP did not made any public announcements about Chong’s case, and this is the first time his story has been reported.

    Jiang was introduced to Chong in 2015 by a mutual acquaintance, with whom Jiang had worked at a Richmond accounting firm. Chong presented himself as an “authorized representative of Fountainvest Partners, a prestigious Hong Kong-based investment service,” according to Jiang’s lawsuit, and outlined a lucrative investment opportunity purportedly paying an interest rate of 9.15 per cent per annum. Jiang gave Chong a wire transfer and a bank draft, totalling $300,000, payable to Fountainvest Holdings.

    Fountainvest Partners is “a leading private equity firm” managing assets worth more than US$4.5 billion, says the company’s website.

    But B.C.-based Fountainvest Holdings had “no relationship whatsoever” with the Hong Kong-based Fountainvest Partners, Jiang’s lawsuit said. Instead, B.C. corporate records show that a sole proprietorship called “Fountainvest Holdings” was incorporated in May 2013 by Howard Chong. It appears to be nothing more than a shell company, Jiang said in a recent interview.

    “I was just too naïve. I didn’t consider it could be a scammer,” said Jiang, now 32, who said the loss has caused stress and hardship for his family. “He was my friend’s friend, so I figured it couldn’t be wrong.”

    Jiang’s friend who introduced him to Chong is also listed in the indictment as one of the alleged fraud victims, in incidents alleged to have taken place weeks after she connected the two.

    Soon after Jiang sent the money, he began to worry something was amiss. Unable to reach Chong, he made a police report. He also contacted BCSI Investigations, a West Vancouver private investigation firm, in August 2015. The BCSI report outlines the steps the private detectives took, including investigating records and conducting surveillance, which led them to interview some of the people eventually named as alleged victims in the criminal charges.

    ‘He just disappeared’
    Denis Gagnon, BCSI’s president and senior investigator, conducted a credit report on Chong, and found his employer was listed as Sunstar Realty, a firm operating out of east Vancouver for 25 years.

    Chong was, indeed, a licensed B.C. realtor between 2012 and 2013, the Real Estate Council of B.C. confirmed, and he was licensed with Sunstar.

    However, Sunstar’s managing broker David Mak said this month that although Chong “hung his licence” with the brokerage in 2012 and 2013, he did not complete a single transaction during that time.

    “He didn’t actually do any trading,” Mak said. “He didn’t do anything.”

    Mak said he co-operated with investigators when they came to ask about Chong.

    Chong was never seen around the Sunstar office, and he owed the firm money for office fees, Mak said, adding: “We fired him shortly due to non-productivity and outstanding bills.”

    “Then he just disappeared,” Mak said.

    Chong used his employment as a real estate professional in 2012 to secure a two-bedroom apartment in a new high-end condo building in north Richmond, his former landlords recalled.

    The owner of the apartment, who is also listed as an alleged victim in the criminal indictment, does not speak fluent English, but connected The Province to her son. The son, who spoke on the condition he would be identified only as James, said: “That’s why we first selected him as a tenant, because we thought he had a legitimate job and he was going to be able to afford his rent. He showed us his card and his licence.”

    Copies of email correspondence between James’s mother and Chong are attached to the investigator’s report, including emails where Chong presented her with a purported investment opportunity involving a major residential real estate project in Burnaby. Chong told the alleged fraud victim in his emails that he had “helped” the developer with sales “for a long time, so we have always had a very close relationship.”

    A representative of that real estate developer said this month they had never heard Chong’s name.

    James recalled having lunch with his mother and Chong at a Thai restaurant in Richmond around the middle of 2015. James said his mother had already sent money to Chong for a purported investment, but during their lunch meeting, Chong asked for more money. He was well dressed and soft-spoken, James recalled.

    Soon after that lunch, James’s family lost contact with Chong.

    “He was missing,” James said. “We were worried. … When we first tried to contact the police, we were thinking something had happened to Howard. … When we contacted the police and the locksmith to get into the apartment, the apartment was completely a mess. But nobody was there.”

    Clothes were strewn about the floor, and Chong had left behind his guitars, a computer and other possessions, James recalled. It looked as though someone had left in a hurry.

    The world of private eyes
    When Chong disappeared, he also apparently left behind a wife.

    A Vancouver-area woman who identified herself to police as Chong’s wife also believed he was a realtor at Sunstar, according to documents filed with the lawsuit. In August 2015, within days of Jiang hiring BCSI Investigations, investigator Gagnon met with Chong’s wife at a coffee shop in Oakridge mall. Chong’s wife told Gagnon that the pair had been married for the past three years and she “denies any knowledge” of the alleged fraud.

    Chong’s wife appears to have co-operated with police and has not been charged in connection with her husband’s alleged crimes. When reached by phone this week, she told The Province she has no idea of Chong’s whereabouts, but declined an interview.

    Gagnon, a former RCMP officer, said his private investigation firm worked collaboratively alongside Richmond RCMP in the Chong case.

    “Private investigators working with police is more common now,” Gagnon said.

    Often when fraud victims phone the police, they’ll be told it’s a civil matter, Gagnon said, and that it might be better handled by a private investigator.

    “They don’t have the manpower, they don’t have the budget,” Gagnon said. “Cybercrime is exploding now, and the law hasn’t kept up with cybercrime. I’d say about 70 per cent of our business is now cyber-related.”

    B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, which is responsible for licensing private investigators, declined to comment on any working relationship between P.I.’s and police. Statistics provided by the ministry show that the number of licensed private investigators in B.C. increased by more than 80 per cent between 2004 and 2017, and as of this month, there were 758 licensed investigators.

    ‘Everything is trust’
    Gagnon described the subject of this investigation as “extremely sophisticated,” but many elements of Chong’s alleged frauds are hallmarks of such cases, he said, and members of the public should be aware of them.

    Regulators and police sometimes warn the public about “affinity fraud,” defined in a 2009 Enforcement Report from the Canadian Securities Administrators as “a common type of investment that targets members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, the elderly, or professional groups. The fraudsters who promote affinity frequently are — or pretend to be — members of the group, whereby they exploit the trust and friendship that exist in a shared community.”

    All seven of Chong’s alleged fraud victims listed in the indictment have Chinese names.

    “Everything is trust,” Gagnon said. “There is that trust factor they play on.”

    It’s also not uncommon, Gagnon said, for fraudsters to use social networks and mutual friends to meet prospective victims. Sometimes, he said, after a person unknowingly sets up his or her friend to be a victim, they end up becoming a victim themselves.

    Also, the purported investment opportunity Chong allegedly presented to Jiang boasted an unusually high return. In hindsight, said Jiang, that should have been a red flag.

    The Chong case is not Gagnon’s only recent investigation involving the Richmond RCMP. Last June, police announced an unusual discovery in a south Richmond warehouse. The stash was not of drugs or guns or stolen cars, but of pianos, ranging from small uprights to concert grands. The Richmond RCMP asked any owners of “missing” pianos to contact them. The Mounties had been tipped off, The National Post reported a few weeks later, by Gagnon, who had been “hired by one of the disgruntled piano owners.”

    Although Jiang won a default judgment, he has not seen a dime from Chong and doesn’t hold out much hope that he ever will. Last year, the RCMP investigated a tip that Chong may be in Singapore, but records showed he had already left the country and had not re-entered.

    The Canada-wide arrest warrant for Chong remains, said Cpl. Marco Sallinen, supervisor of the Richmond RCMP’s economic crime unit. If he does return to Canada, “he would be arrested and arrangements made to have him brought to court in Richmond.”

    “If anybody has any information to the whereabouts of Howard Chong, they are urged to contact the Richmond RCMP economic crime unit, or B.C. Crime Stoppers if they wish to remain anonymous,” Sallinen said in an email. Gagnon, the private investigator, said anyone who had dealings with Chong or has information about his whereabouts can contact BCSI Investigations at 604-922-6572 or info@picanada.ca.

    James, Chong’s former landlord, said: “I don’t know if I will ever hear from him again, but I do hope that we will find a conclusion about the case one day. … But the hope is getting smaller and smaller.

    “He just disappeared.”



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  2. #2
    Michael Newman's Avatar
    Michael Newman is offline Licensed Private Investigator
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    Re: Vanishing act: Fugitive from justice, one-time realtor pursued by Private Investigator

    This case is very close to some cases I have worked. There will always be victims who will hire private investigators to pick up where the police have stopped to bring some justice to their lives.

    It's another reason why private investigators enjoy being the hero to help victims.

    "You can run, but you won't always be able to hide."

    Michael
    Michael Newman
    Licensed Private Investigator

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