A Vancouver resident who gained notoriety for running a can of alcohol in a downtown condo during the height of COVID lockdown measures has been penalized $160,000 and banned from the investment industry.
Mohammad Movassaghi forged signatures and misled Investigative Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) investigators, according to an independent hearing panel.
The investment broker regulator says the March 16 penalties against Movassaghi have been finalized, including a permanent ban on any IIROC registrations, $50,000 for fakes, $50,000 for investigators misleading and $60,000 for hearing costs (about half of what it cost IIROC).
The panel stated that Movassaghi’s inappropriate actions, which occurred between July and September 2016, “caused material harm to market reputation and market integrity; were criminal or quasi-criminal in nature; demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to act honestly and fairly in his dealings with clients, the public and the securities industry as a whole; and undermined IIROC’s ability to effectively perform its regulatory functions in the public interest.
Movassaghi had already settled his case with IIROC. He admitted in July 2017 to forging a client’s signature on forms to facilitate the transfer of investment accounts from Investors Group Financial Services Inc. to Harbourfront Wealth Management Inc., where he was a brokerage manager.
But investigators later found other forged signatures and reopened the case against him, according to the March 4 ruling.
VIOLATED COVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH ORDERS
Last April, British Columbia Provincial Court Judge Ellen Gordon handed Movassaghi 18 months probation and 10 days in jail plus a day in jail after he was found guilty of violating the law on public health and illegally selling alcohol following a party in January 2021.
The Vancouver Police Department said they discovered Movassaghi, 43, “held an illegal liquor can and showroom inside his 1,100 square foot penthouse, packing it with hundreds of people and violating COVID-19 health orders”.
Gordon rebuked Movassaghi in his April 28, 2021 decision: “If anyone who had been to your party got infected and passed it on to Grandma, as far as I’m concerned, you would be guilty of manslaughter. What you have done, sir, is comparable to the individuals who sell fentanyl to people on the streets who are dying every day. There is no difference. You willingly assumed the risk that could kill people in the midst of a pandemic. »
Movassaghi began throwing more parties over the summer, prompting a second police investigation.
He later pleaded guilty to two more counts of failing to follow health orders and one additional count of illegally selling alcohol. He was sentenced to 29 days in jail, an additional 12 months probation and fined $10,000 last November, according to Vancouver police.
gwood@glaciermedia.ca
