A self-proclaimed “Chinese Warren Buffett” who is wanted in Canada for running a pyramid scheme that bilked at least US$29 million from investors, has fled to China, he told a local newspaper.
Tang Weizhen (唐煒臻), 51, faces arrest in Canada, where he is banned from trading securities, after he failed to turn himself in to police on Dec. 29 to answer fraud charges.
In e-mails to the daily Globe and Mail published on Thursday, Tang said he traveled to China “to make money” in order to reimburse some 100 clients of his Oversea Chinese Fund who lost their investments.
“I have nothing to do with fraud and I am not hiding from anybody,” Tang told the newspaper. “I told my lawyer I will be back [for] my hearing [in] February and use the break to make money since the OSC [Ontario Securities Commission] ban[ned] me from trading.”
Loftus Cuddy, Tang’s lawyer, said: “He’s advised me that he’s trading successfully overseas, but I don’t know where he is exactly. When he’s to return in early February, he would go directly to a bail court and then face an Ontario Securities Commission trial in April.”
“There’s a misconception out there that he’s a fugitive,” Cuddy said. “He’s not a fugitive. He left Canada in November before a warrant was issued for his arrest. So he faced no prohibitions when he left.”
“I know he plans to come back,” the lawyer said. “All of his roots are in Canada. He has no intention of remaining a fugitive.”
Investors in Tang’s hedge fund were said to be from Canada, China and the US, where members of the Chinese-American community were specifically targeted.
Tang previously admitted that the fund operated as a Ponzi scheme from 2004 until at least 2006, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said.
He also admitted to raising between US$50 million and US$75 million from more than 200 investors, the SEC said.
The fund’s Web site continues to promise returns of 1 percent per week to clients after an initial investment of around US$150,000, but Tang’s office telephone has been disconnected.
Tang is already accused by US authorities of posting false profits on investors’ account statements until last February, to hide substantial trading losses.
Constable Wendy Drummond of the Toronto Police Service said Interpol had been informed of the warrant for Tang’s arrest.
China and Canada do not have an extradition treaty, she said, “so it probably won’t help us get him back.”
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