A North Vancouver man has been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing nearly US$1 million from investors following a criminal investigation by the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC).
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Ward Derek Jensen was sentenced on August 16 in North Vancouver Provincial Court after previously pleading guilty to one count of theft over $5,000. As part of his sentence, the Court ordered US$900,534 in restitution to his victims for their financial losses.
Jensen stole US$971,586 from nine investors between 2007 and 2017 under the pretense of investing the money in a private fund purportedly held at a Chicago firm and administered through his B.C. company, Kassel Enterprises. Neither Jensen nor his company were registered to trade securities as required by B.C.’s Securities Act, nor did they qualify for any exemptions.
Jensen promised investors he could generate annual returns of 14 to 18 percent on any funds entrusted to him. In reality, he misappropriated investor funds for his personal use and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of investor funds, making bad stock trades through his brokerage account.
Jensen concealed his theft and the trading losses he incurred by providing forged monthly statements to his victims, showing their investments continuously growing.
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According to Jensen’s banking records, he rarely – if ever – had enough funds to return the investors’ principal investment, let alone any purported gains. When one victim asked to withdraw some of her money, Jensen lied and said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had frozen the funds in his account.
As of 2020, Jensen had less than CAD$50,000 available to repay the victims of his theft.
