The autorité des marchés financiers of Quebec is demanding the maximum sentence available against a businessman found guilty of running the Mount Real Ponzi scheme.
The AMF, Quebec’s securities watchdog, is asking for Lino Matteo to spend five years in prison and pay $4.8 million in fines after defrauding investors of at least $108 million.
Matteo was found guilty of 270 counts of securities fraud earlier this month.
The 55-year-old was charged with violating the securities act, through which a five-year prison sentence is the maximum.
Matteo was the founder and president of Mount Real, a company which scammed 1,600 investors through a confusingly complicated financial structure.
The company collapsed in 2006 when it declared bankruptcy. The $108 million is gone and Matteo says he doesn’t know what happened to it.
Read more at CTV News Montreal
