Fraudster ordered to pay back $26.9M upon release from prison

A Barrie guy who bilked hundreds of buyers out of hundreds of thousands of bucks will have to fork out back again $26.9 million following he’s released from the penitentiary.

Charles DeBono, 63, was handed a seven-yr sentence Tuesday — reduced to 4 yrs, a few months and 19 days soon after acquiring credit score for pre-trial custody. He experienced previously pleaded guilty in February to fraud more than $5,000 and laundering money. 

He was also ordered to shell out $26 million in restitution within just 5 several years of becoming introduced from jail. He will serve an additional seven-yr sentence if he defaults on paying up.

DeBono offered phony investments in a position-of-sale terminal possession program in what law enforcement said was very little much more than a Ponzi scheme. When banks commenced shutting him down in 2017, he fled to the Dominican Republic with millions of bucks as properly as hundreds of hundreds of bucks value of cars and trucks and other property. 

“The terminals, in point, did not exist,” Ontario Exceptional Court docket Justice Michelle Fuerst said during sentencing.

Approximately 515 men and women, mainly in Canada but also in Nigeria, dropped a put together $29 million, foremost some to lose their everyday living discounts and retirement incomes amongst 2012 and 2017.

The Barrie person had no prison file and held typical center-class employment, including in the community utilized car or truck marketplace, before building KIS Media Ventures in 2012, which served as an umbrella group for illicit companies, such as Debit Direct and Company Partners Ventures Inc.

Employing phony brochures and elaborate gross sales messages, DeBono made use of revenue brokers and sold his scheme on web-sites and at trade and franchise demonstrates across the country, in accordance to an agreed-upon statement of details filed with the court. People recruited to sell considered they ended up providing a legit business chance. 

The stage-of-sale terminals were to be positioned in higher-quantity firms throughout Canada and the buyers were being to receive 15 cents per transaction in regular payouts.

At the time he secured clients who assumed they were being investing in the devices, he despatched them regular monthly economical statements and even dividend cheques in the early times. Nevertheless, the returns on the terminals have been basically remaining funded by new trader deposits. 

Crown prosecutor Ted Ofiara previously explained to the courtroom there was no proof that any devices were ever placed in organizations and possible the only scanning equipment connected to DeBono had been the kinds he displayed to market that became a Ponzi scheme.

The business enterprise used virtual office environment room at To start with Canadian Position in Toronto, but its base was really an office at a Barrie car or truck fix store which DeBono owned and was managed by his neighbour, a mechanic. Any mail sent to Toronto was forwarded to a publish business office box in Barrie.

A female used as an administrative assistant in essence dealt with the bulk of the every day business of Debit Immediate at DeBono’s way out of the business office in the garage. In the course of the investigation, she presented police with a USB flash travel that contains contracts, invoices, spread sheets, trader names, investor amounts, and text messages. 

In 2014, a salesman was hired to promote the terminals. He considered the business to be reputable and he himself acquired in and inspired relatives members to be included.

A woman was hired to mine info on small corporations, which were being then assigned to debit-machine identification figures. The lists have been then despatched to investors to propose that the terminals were building earnings.

Fuerst said DeBono integrated the hallmarks of legitimate operations into his fraud. He had a internet site, appeared at reveals, hired commissioned salespeople, employed contracts, and experienced a prestigious Toronto deal with.

Traders been given lists of enterprises where he claimed the machines have been positioned, every month reviews as well as regular payments.

“The victims have been devastated by their economic losses,” the choose claimed Tuesday. “To date, Mr. DeBono has presented no restitution to his victims.”

DeBono also adopted the title of a friend as an alias that he employed in some of his correspondence relevant to the fake business and in some cases in meetings with buyers.

In 2014, DeBono fulfilled and subsequently married a girl from the Dominican Republic, where he significantly used far more time and to where he transferred income and assets.

Beginning in 2014, the mechanic found DeBono’s noticeable screen of prosperity even while the automobile enterprise, which DeBono supported, was not worthwhile, court heard. The subsequent 12 months, the mechanic noticed extra than $1 million in 1 of DeBono’s accounts.

Banking companies commenced closing accounts in DeBono’s name and, in the summer of 2017, his plan commenced to collapse.

On Aug. 22, 2017, when all the banking companies closed in on him, he fled to the Dominican Republic with the relaxation of his funds. 

That identical thirty day period he despatched an e-mail applying his friend’s title to all of the Debit Immediate buyers telling them that a payment processing organization in Latin America was getting Debit Immediate. When their payments stopped the subsequent month, they discovered the firm had no understanding of Debit Direct. By then, the Debit Immediate web-site was down and its cell phone number was no for a longer time in service. 

1 of the traders was equipped to source the e-mail to a mobile phone applying a mobile tower in the Dominican Republic.

Nine law enforcement organizations fielded grievances from throughout the place. The Barrie Police Assistance was the first investigating company, but as the scale of the situation ballooned, the freshly fashioned OPP Severe Fraud Office inevitably took carriage of the total investigation as its very first case.

DeBono experienced managed to transfer $12.2 million to the Dominican Republic in financial institution drafts and cables. The revenue was then moved to his accounts there as perfectly as those people of associates.

In the Dominican, he invested in a hotel, homes and dozens of condos, courtroom heard.

He also applied the cash towards the acquire of two million-greenback townhouses in Richmond Hill.

DeBono was arrested in the Dominican Republic through the top of the pandemic in September 2020 and was discovered to be carrying pretend identification for the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.

Police seized just about $1 million, and another $300,000 (US). They were also equipped to restrain a syndicated property finance loan investment decision in Milton totalling $875,000.

At his sentencing hearing in April, court listened to that buyers shed their everyday living and retirement price savings. Their top quality of existence has been impacted. There have been strained associations and breakups. 

In target effect statements some explained to how their wellness has been impacted and other folks told about the emotional toll their loss and DeBono’s get experienced on them.

The two times-married DeBono has an grownup son, a history of prostate most cancers, has diabetic issues and is bipolar.

Fuerst pointed out that he apologized to the courtroom and mentioned he would do his greatest to make victims of his fraud complete once more. He is now compelled by the courtroom to spend back $26 million in just five a long time in just his release or go back to jail.

The choose pointed out that he nevertheless has assets in the Dominican Republic that Canadian police ended up unable to accessibility.