Calgary fraud victim questions Canadian response after U.S. prison sentence

A former Calgary television producer has been sentenced to 11 years in a U.S. prison for a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, leaving a victim to question whether Canadian authorities could have acted sooner to prevent his crimes. Neil Shuresh Chandran, 54, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in April and was sentenced in July. He and his associate, Bryan Lee, 60, of Las Vegas, were ordered to pay US$21.7 million in restitution to thousands of investors. Chandran and Lee raised US$45 million from about 10,000 investors between 2018 and 2022 through companies that falsely claimed they would be sold to a consortium of billionaires. Instead, the pair used the money for personal gain, according to the FBI. "Chandran and Lee treated investor funds as their own personal piggy bank, using the money to purchase multiple houses and dozens of luxury vehicles," said Darren Cox of the FBI Washington Field Office. Lee, the sole officer of Chandran’s company ViMarket, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.

U.S. Attorney Lesley A. Woods for the District of Nebraska said such schemes have devastating consequences. "It takes a particularly cold and calculating criminal to perpetrate these schemes and to continue to lie to victims to keep the scheme alive," Woods said. This was not Chandran’s first fraud conviction. He was fined $400,000 by the Alberta Securities Commission in 2015 for illegally trading and distributing securities related to his Calgary media production business, Energy TV. That company had raised about $39 million from Alberta investors between 2007 and 2009.

In 2017, Chandran was charged in the U.S. over a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors solicited for 3D tablet computers, to which he pleaded guilty a year later. Former Alberta resident Justin Fletcher, who became involved with Chandran in 2016, assisted the FBI in its recent investigation. Fletcher described Chandran as a pathological liar with no remorse. "He gave the same spiel that basically everybody ruined it for him, and he had something real, and he needed more time," Fletcher said.

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Fletcher said he believes justice took too long and that Canadian authorities failed to act. "There’s still a lot of people who don’t have their money and they don’t have a lot of options now to get their money because the different paths to get the money are really complicated," he said. "It’s sad and I do feel like Alberta and the federal authorities in Canada failed us." He added that while the process was painful, he is thankful some justice was served.

Organizations like the Canadian Securities Administrators urge investors to protect themselves. "Knowledge is one of the most effective tools investors have to achieve their financial goals and protect themselves from fraud," said a statement from Stan Magidson, chair of the CSA and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission. The CSA warns that investment scams often promise high returns with little risk, pressure victims to act quickly, and are unsolicited. They advise investors to check registration, question offers, and be wary of advice based on hype or emotional appeals, especially on social media.

With files from Calgary Herald