{"id":66769,"date":"2015-12-09T22:41:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T03:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=66769"},"modified":"2015-12-09T22:41:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T03:41:19","slug":"two-men-arrested-in-multimillion-dollar-pyramid-scheme-operated-out-of-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/12\/09\/two-men-arrested-in-multimillion-dollar-pyramid-scheme-operated-out-of-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men arrested in multimillion dollar pyramid scheme operated out of Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-65579\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65579\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" alt=\"Untitled design-2\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Toronto police have charged two men in an alleged multimillion-dollar pyramid scheme that involved thousands of participants around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Police say the scheme\u2014known as \u201cBanners Broker\u201d\u2014was operated out of a Toronto address between October 2010 and March 2013.<\/p>\n<p>They say it offered participants the opportunity to double their money by investing in an advertising company that had access to a \u201cglobally renowned network.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scheme&#8217;s participants were led to believe their investments were being applied towards a program offering payment for the direction of web traffic via referral links.<\/p>\n<p>Police say the program&#8217;s existence was entirely dependent on the fee-based entry of new members to the scheme, and that little or no real product or service was actually provided.<\/p>\n<p>They say new investors were drawn into the scheme by false or misleading representations.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of 2012, police say more than US$93 million was obtained from thousands of participants, of which about $45 million was paid back to participants in the scheme.<\/p>\n<p>The remaining funds were funneled to a number of offshore accounts in Belize, St. Lucia, Cyprus and other locations.<\/p>\n<p>Police say Christopher George Smith, 45, of Toronto, and Rajiv Dixit, 45, of Vancouver, have been arrested.<\/p>\n<p>They have been charged with defrauding the public, possession of proceeds of crime and laundering proceeds of crime. They have also been charged under the Competition Act with operating a pyramid scheme and making false or misleading representations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto police have charged two men in an alleged multimillion-dollar pyramid scheme that involved thousands of participants around the world. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-66769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}