A Bank of Montreal financial planner allegedly embezzled more than $180,000 from seven elderly customers to pursue his passion for gambling and pay off personal debt.
Jérémie Paquet, a BMO planner in the Quebec region, allegedly devised a complex fraudulent scheme involving wire transfers between accounts in different institutions to thwart the bank’s controls.
He was suspended in mid-May and fired by his employer ten days later.
Paquet is the third financial planner to have allegedly defrauded clients, reported by our Bureau of Investigation in recent months (see below).
The young man is said to have targeted elderly people by making unauthorized withdrawals from their accounts using checks or bank drafts made out in his name.
game problems
This was discovered by a BMO investigator after a bank check that Paquet was trying to cash caught the attention of an employee.
“As the defendant is still struggling with his gambling problems and has used fraudulent activities to satisfy his pathology, it is feared that he will use the remaining funds in his bank account,” the investigator said in a affidavit.
Concerned that more funds would be squandered, the bank went to court to seek an injunction over Paquet’s assets. Superior Court Judge Nicole Tremblay approved the seizure ahead of the late May verdict.
Photo Stevens Leblanc
Jérémie Paquet’s home is the subject of a seizure application by the Bank of Montreal following the discovery of possible embezzlement.
His home in Château-Richer, a Quebec suburb, is particularly targeted, as are his bank accounts and securities.
$245,000 in compensation
“Based on the assessment provided by the defendant itself, the plaintiff believes that she will have to pay the sum of $245,000 […] to compensate their customers,” the bank’s investigator claims in the submitted document.
The bank says it has not yet completed its investigation. She says she bases her estimate on the more than $180,000 that Paquet has already embezzled.
The bank’s investigators speak of “acts of a fraudulent nature” that the employee committed.
Paquet would have confessed when confronted by the bench and he would have admitted his gambling problem, which he had never mentioned before.
According to information from the bank, Jérémie Paquet used a credit card in his wife’s name to gamble. However, the latter did not know of the existence of this card in their name.
The BMO investigator points out that Paquet used the embezzled money to pay off personal debts, including expenses related to his residence.
He even used an excuse to imitate colleagues’ signatures with a carbon copy made on a formal bank draft.
BMO has already begun refunding customers whose funds are alleged to have been misappropriated.
The alleged fraudulent scheme
A third planner was fired or suspended
Jérémie Paquet isn’t the only financial planner who has allegedly misled his clients to make headlines in recent months.
Do you have any information about this story that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a scoop that might be of interest to our readers?