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2 charged in $30M fraud scheme

Ex-lawyer, real estate developer arrested on multiple counts

David Baines, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The society found that, from January 1998 to May 2002, $52.7 million passed through Wirick's trust accounts to Gill and his companies.

Of this amount, $32.6 million was used for development and construction costs; $12.5 million was paid to lending institutions to keep mortgages up to date, including those that should have been discharged; $3.2 million was paid to Gill and related parties and only $600,000 to Wirick.

The fraud was discovered in the spring of 2002. Wirick resigned from the society in May that year. He subsequently declared bankruptcy and obtained relatively menial employment at the pet food business. Gill has continued to develop property in the Vancouver area.

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After the alleged fraud was detected, Vancouver police embarked on what they described as the biggest commercial crime investigation in VPD history. So big, it turns out, that they couldn't handle it.

In June 2004, after several false starts, the Vancouver RCMP commercial crime section and the Vancouver police financial crimes unit formed a joint task force to investigate the matter.

Law society officials earlier made no secret of their frustration with the pace of the police investigation, but on Tuesday, when charges were finally laid, diplomacy prevailed.

"Obviously they have been some time coming, but we are satisfied that charges have been laid," said Hunter.

At the time of the alleged fraud, the law society had a $17.5-million annual cap on client claims for lawyer fraud. Clearly this was not going to be enough to compensate Wirick's victims. So the society, to its credit, removed the cap.

Since then, the law society has moved to limit payouts on account of lawyer fraud to $300,000 per transaction, with a cumulative cap of $17.5 million in any one year.

Hunter also said the law society has stepped up its auditing of lawyer's trust accounts and directed its members to advise the society when financial institutions take undue time providing mortgage discharges -- a procedural weakness that Wirick and Gill used to advance their alleged scheme.

[email-masked]

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

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