Former Canucks goalie ordered to return $384K in Ponzi profits

​Former Vancouver Canucks goalie Kay Whitmore has been ordered to return the $384,000 he profited from investing in a $110 million Ponzi scheme run by former B.C. notary public Rashida Samji.

Last year, Samji was sentenced to six years in prison after she was found guilty on 14 counts of fraud relating to 284 named investors and companies who were led to believe their money was being invested in a winery.

Creditors of Samji's estate, including investors who lost money in the scheme, are now going after those who made money, including Whitmore.

According to B.C. Supreme Court documents, Whitmore, who is now the NHL goaltending supervisor, initially invested $600,000 with Samji in December of 2005, on the promise that his six month investment would pay out 7.5 per cent in an interest-like guaranteed return.

In fact, Whitmore received a first payment of $45,000 from Samji less than two weeks later in the form of nine bank drafts of $5,000 each. 

For the next six years, Whitmore continued investing in the scheme and receiving payments, which usually came in the form of multiple bank drafts for amounts of less than $10,000.

Double counted $30K

Court documents note that at one point, Samji erroneously "double-counted" a $30,000 payment in Whitmore's favour. The extra $30,000 was reinvested and went undetected by Samji.

The relationship ended in January of 2012 when Whitmore withdrew the last of his remaining principal with Samji. 

The following month, the Ponzi scheme began to unravel when the Society of Notaries Public of B.C. suspended Samji and launched a fraud investigation.

In April of 2012, the B.C. Securities Commission alleged Samji had used the lure of annual returns of 12 to 30 per cent to attract investors but then deposited their money directly into her private bank accounts. 

She kept the scheme going by paying existing investors with money from new investors. 

The judgment found Whitmore, although innocent of any wrongdoing "other than perhaps a failure to perform even a modicum of due diligence," chose to invest with Samji solely on the fact that good friend Dallas Eakins, former head coach of the Edmonton Oilers, had also invested.

No tax documents

Justice Gordon Weatherill also found that Whitmore "struggled during his cross-examination to provide a logical reason for why he was content to have the re-payments of his principal paid directly to his bank account but requested that the fee payments be sent to him at his home in Ontario in the form of bank drafts in increments below $10,000."

Weatherill also said it was "incomprehensible" that Whitmore would not have questioned why he received no tax documents from Samji recording the money he was making.

In his decision, Weatherill agreed with the plaintiff's argument that allowing Whitmore to keep the $384,000 "will amount to a condoning of careless or willfully blind behaviour "by those who profited from a scheme where "off the books transactions which appear to be too good to be true are being considered."

Of the 220 investors in Samji's Ponzi scheme, approximately 150 lost money, amounting to millions of dollars.