BC Hells Angel accused of making millions in fraudulent stock schemes

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A member of the elite Nomads chapter of the BC Hells Angels is facing securities and wire fraud charges in New York state that allege he was involved in an international stock scam with illicit profits of US$35 million.

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Earlier this month Courtney Vasseur, 41, participated in the Angels’ commemorative ride from the East Vancouver clubhouse to honor slain biker Dave “Screwy” Swartz.

Now the Burnaby resident is facing a much bumpier ride with both criminal and civil charges filed against him south of the border.

The criminal indictment alleges that Vasseur, along with BC resident Curtis Lehner, German citizen Hasan Sario and Domenic Calabrigo, a Canadian living in the Bahamas, “orchestrated multiple pump and dump stock manipulation schemes” over several years.

Vasseur, also known by “Black Water,” “Arctic Shark” and other aliases, worked with the others to “secretly amass control of the vast majority of the stock of certain publicly traded companies,” the 35-page criminal indictment alleges.

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The accused “then manipulated the price and trading volumes for these stocks, causing the share price and trading volume to become artificially inflated, and finally sold out of their secretly amassed positions at these inflated values ​​at the expense of the investing public.”

Most of the companies were registered in Nevada. They purported to be involved in businesses such as skin care products, health apps, mineral exploration and drone-enhanced home-security systems.

“These publicly traded shell companies frequently had few, if any, current assets or current business operations,” the indictment says. “While on paper the defendants and their co-conspirators had no connection to these companies, in reality they exercised substantial control, which included financing the company’s operations and funding payments for attorneys in order to prepare public filings.”

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Vasseur, Lehner and the others co-ordinated with the companies to issue press releases and announcements containing false and misleading statements, the US alleges.

“Vasseur, at times, reviewed, edited and approved of the content in these public announcements before they were issued by the companies.”

Both Vasseur and Lehner were arrested last week and appeared in BC Supreme Court April 14. The US Department of Justice said it intends to seek their extradition, as well as that of several other defendants named on three separate indictments stemming from the investigation.

“These pernicious ‘pump-and-dump’ schemes made the defendants rich while causing real harm to ordinary, retail investors who were left swallowing the losses,” US Attorney Damian Williams said.

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FBI assistant director Michael J. Driscoll said stock manipulation schemes “undermine confidence in our financial markets and create a playing field designed to illegally benefit a greedy few fraudsters at the expense of many honest investors.”

Lehner, 53, owns no property in BC, according to a search of provincial government databases. Nor does he have a criminal record.

But he was once a principal at Eron Mortgage, the company that defrauded BC residents of tens of millions of dollars in the mid-1990s. Company president Brian Slobogian and vice-president Frank Biller both went to prison for fraud.

Vasseur also has no real estate registered in his name in BC But he does have loans on a 2017 Harley Davidson motorcycle and a 2021 GMC Sierra 3500 truck, according to the personal property registry. Both documents list Vasseur’s home address as being on Government Street in Burnaby. The house, assessed at almost $3.5 million, is owned by a woman who lives at the same address.

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Vasseur does not have a criminal record here.

He was charged in 2013 with possession for the purpose of trafficking after he and an associate crashed into the rear of a bus at Cambie and 16th on May 15, 2013. Emergency responders found Vasseur and Craig Retvedt unconscious with bluish skin. A judge later agreed they were likely “experiencing overdose effects of fentanyl.”

Police found fentanyl, then relatively unknown in BC, in two locations in Vasseur’s Cadillac Escalade. Both were charged with possessing the fentanyl.

BC Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes acquired them in September 2017.

“The circumstances were highly suspicious. One of the two men clearly was in possession of at least the powder, and possibly both of them were. However, on the evidence it is no more likely that it was Mr. Retvedt in possession than it was Mr. Vasseur, and it is no more likely that it was Mr. Vasseur than it was Mr. Retvedt; joint possession is speculative,” Holmes said.

“For neither Mr. Retvedt nor Mr. Vasseur has the Crown come beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in possession of some or all of the fentanyl.”

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