'I have nothing to do with this': B.C. man says he had no idea his name was linked to global fraud scheme

CTV National News: A pyramid scheme in Canada Adrian Ghobrial reports on a man who's trying to clear his name after he said it was used in an elaborate pyramid scheme.

VANCOUVER / TORONTO — This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CTV News.

For years, Randy Lane was a listed director of a Canadian company accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the world.

But Lane says he knew nothing about it.

The B.C. businessman and scientist says his identity was stolen and used to set up a series of companies peddling fraudulent investment schemes, apparently with the goal of helping the real criminals cover their tracks.

“It was extremely stressful to learn that my name is being used to create companies and defraud people of apparently billions of dollars,” Lane said in an interview in his Richmond, B.C., office. “So I immediately needed to clear my name of these activities. I have nothing to do with this.”

Since 2021, six Canadian financial services companies have listed Lane as a director. All six of those companies share the same Ontario address

One of those companies is Metaverse Foreign Exchange Group Inc., or MTFE, a company at the heart of an alleged scheme that swindled more than US$2 billion from investors in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Lane, a businessman and engineer who designs medical devices, says he only learned about those companies when British Columbia securities investigators contacted him last year with questions.

Lane says he is stepping forward now to clear his name and to sound the alarm.

“There seems to be a backdoor system in Canada to be able to create fraudulent companies using people’s information,” Lane said.

Behind MTFE

MTFE billed itself as an online investment platform where users invested via cryptocurrency. It gained massive popularity in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where local promoters recruited investors on social media and advertised the platform at cricket games.

But as an IJF and CTV News investigation this year found, authorities believed the company was more like a giant pyramid scheme, with local distributors kicking up proceeds to a “parent company” that was nominally based in Canada. The platform folded in August 2023, when investors were suddenly unable to withdraw their deposits.

Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan authorities have told media outlets in those countries that there could be hundreds of thousands of victims and that total losses could be as high as US$2.7 billion.

Many of those investors trusted the company because of its Canadian credentials. MTFE was federally registered in Canada and had successfully registered with Canada’s anti-money laundering watchdog.

The company listed two directors. One, Hongbing Wang, has an address in China and could not be found.

The other was Lane, who says he only learned about those companies in June 2023 when he received an email from an investigator with the B.C. Securities Commission.

At first, Lane thought the investigators had the wrong information.

But the company registrations contained his full name — Randy Mathieu Lane.

That struck Lane as odd for more than one reason. His real middle name, he said, is “Matthew.” But when he moved from Quebec to B.C. in the 1990s, a transcription error resulted in it being changed to the French name “Mathieu” on his driver’s licence. Lane reasons the person who set up the corporation would only have known that if they had his personal identification documents.

Through the investigator, Lane learned his name appeared as a director on six companies in Ontario, including MTFE, most of which had another director in China.

The B.C Securities Commission declined to comment for this story. But at the time they contacted Lane in June 2023, Canadian securities officials were looking into MTFE. Three days after Lane was contacted, the Ontario Securities Commission issued a warning alerting investors that MTFE was not registered to trade securities in that province.

Lane shared email messages showing he answered the investigator’s questions. After that, he said, correspondence dropped off.

“I thought it had been resolved, to be honest,” Lane said.

The next time Lane heard about it was this summer when the IJF and CTV News investigation was published. He said it was the first time he learned about the scale of the fraud MTFE allegedly helped carry out.

Lane says he has since contacted federal officials asking them to remove his name from the companies, but that the process is moving at a “snail’s pace.”

“Sleepless nights. A lot of stress,” Lane said about how the incident has affected him. He said he’s worried that he may be arrested, potentially while travelling internationally.

“I need to travel for work and my fear is that somehow, somehow this isn’t going to be cleared sufficiently and I could be detained … or potentially arrested,” Lane said.

Who is Steven Jiang?

Garry Clement, a former RCMP financial crime investigator, said Lane appears to have been used as a “straw director” designed to deflect scrutiny and provide legitimacy to a sham company.

“That's what a lot of organized crime figures will do, is establish companies with straw owners who will appear legitimate,” Clement said.

Clement, who spent three years working with law enforcement in Hong Kong in the 1990s, suggested the case has hallmarks of organized crime. He believes criminals are selecting Canada as a venue for establishing such companies because there is little chance of being charged.

Clement said bad actors use sham companies to perpetrate fraud or launder money. And when investigators come looking, Clement said, the straw director may well be holding the bag.

“When anybody does any background or any checking, Randy's going to be the one that's front and centre,” Clement said.

Clement said Lane was an odd target. Often, Clement said, fraudsters aim to steal the identity of someone who is retired or deceased.

“It’s odd that they would use someone that is still functioning in society,” Clement said.

The big question is: how did they steal his identity?

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), which runs the federal corporate registry, declined to comment on Lane’s case.

An ISED spokesperson said in a statement that the department does not verify the identities of a company’s directors.

It does, however, require whoever files the paperwork to show identification, such as a passport or a driver’s licence. It also requires that at least 25 per cent of a company’s directors be Canadian residents.

Lane has been active in the biomedical device industry for more than two decades, and in 2020 he began working with scientists in China on creating a new device.

They began collaborating across the Pacific with the goal of eventually creating and patenting the device in Canada.

In 2021, Lane said his Chinese partners hired the Hong Kong-based firm Richful Deyong to incorporate a shared company in Canada under the name Sequoia Medical Devices Canada. Lane sent his Chinese partners a photo of his passport and proof of residency.

Lane shared documents showing the person who completed the company’s B.C. incorporation was Steven Jiang, who runs an Ontario corporate services business called Elite Tax and Accounting.

Richful Deyong did not answer questions confirming whether they hired Jiang. Neither did two of Lane’s business partners, including the partner he said he sent his identification to.

Shortly after Sequoia Medical Devices Canada was incorporated in February 2021, the companies bearing Lane’s name began to appear.

All of them were registered to the address 500-7030 Woodbine Avenue in Markham, Ont. — the same address used by Jiang’s company and MTFE.

The IJF and CTV News’ previous investigation found that office was the listed address for more than 90 registered money services businesses, most of which have since had their registrations revoked by Canada’s financial crime watchdog.

That space is a co-working and office space operated by IWG Plc, an office management company headquartered in the United Kingdom.

A manager at that office space declined to comment and directed the IJF and CTV News to Simon Condon, the company’s senior vice-president of global communications, who did not respond to emails.

The IJF and CTV News attempted to find Jiang. He and his business did not respond to multiple phone calls, emails and voice messages.

Reporters visited three locations in the Greater Toronto Area that Jiang listed as his address in separate incorporation documents. Residents at two locations — a house and an apartment — said they had never heard of him or the companies in question.

No one answered the door at the third location. Calls to an associated phone number were not returned.

The IJF and CTV News did not find any evidence Jiang had committed identity theft.

Clement says the case highlights how Canada has become a waystation for financial crime.

“These organizations know full well that Canada doesn't have the enforcement capability to get on top of them before they're already bilked hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars from individuals,” Clement said.

He suggested that Lane may not be the only person whose identity was stolen.

“If they use one, I can guarantee they're using others,” Clement said.