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A Toronto man is facing a lengthy period behind bars for his role in a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme involving pink diamond investment.
James Gagliardini was the founder of Paragon International Wealth Management Inc., a company launched in 2013 that defrauded investors in fancy colour diamonds.
Gagliardini operated a ‘boiler room’ operation, with an outbound call centre used to sell investments via telephone. Paragon was active for five years before being raided by Canadian authorities in 2018.
The National Post published a lengthy feature story covering the fraud in August, which reportedly involved false claims of access to pink diamonds from the Argyle mine in Australia.
“The way conmen do business is changing,” writes Adrian Humphreys.
“Sweet-talking cold calls have been eclipsed by online scammers and hackers, but for most high-value investment frauds there is usually someone like Jack [Gagliardini] talking or texting with victims, pushing them to send money and then more money.”
After it was revealed that the majority of the victims were American and not Canadian, the US Department of Justice filed an indictment against four people, who all pleaded guilty. Gagliardini has been sentenced to 56 months behind bars.
“Decorating his office was a colourful painting of a thoroughbred horse race, and a framed photo of Frank Sinatra with his Rat Pack pals outside the Sands hotel, an iconic Las Vegas casino from a bygone era,” Humphreys added.
“Sinatra’s photo was mounted alongside playing cards from a Sands poker deck. The only card face-up in the frame was the Ace of Diamonds. It seems a missed opportunity for it not to be the Jack, because this was the office of a real-life Jack of Diamonds.”
It’s been reported that as many as 200 people were defrauded out of more than $USD21 million ($AUD31.79 million).
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