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A West Vancouver man with a history of conning investors and flouting securities regulations has been charged with three counts of securities fraud and two counts of breaching an order of the B.C. Securities Commission.
Frederick Johnathon Nielsen (a.k.a. Fred Gilliland), 71, is to fix a date for his next appearance in Vancouver provincial court at the end of August on the charges, which stem from allegations Nielsen violated the Securities Act in August 2018 and June 2019.
So far little information has been released about the charges or the investigation, conducted by the criminal investigations branch of the securities commission with the help of the West Vancouver Police Department.
Nielsen has not entered a plea to the charges and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
It’s not the first time Nielsen has run afoul of securities regulators.
In 2017, Nielsen was sent to jail after pleading guilty to breaching a 2011 securities commission order that had banned him from various market activities for 25 years.
Nielsen had been banned from trading shares, acting as a director, officer or consultant to any company involved in securities or engaging in investor relations after an investigation into his running of an illegal telephone marketing operation known as a “boiler room.”
But, according to information presented in North Vancouver provincial court for his 2017 sentencing, that didn’t stop Nielsen from diving back into similar activities in connection with International Wagering Systems, a company trying to set up lotteries in Guatemala, and trying to drum up investors for a dubious scheme involving a bank in Cypress between December 2013 and April 2015.
Eventually some of Nielsen’s investors became suspicious about him, and West Vancouver police arrested Nielsen for breaching the securities order in June of 2015.
The judge who handed him the six-month jail sentence noted at the time Nielsen was a “repeat offender” who “put his own financial interests above those of society.”
Back in 2001, Nielsen – who was then Fred Gilliland – was also charged in the U.S. for a massive investment fraud scheme in Florida. Gilliland fled to West Vancouver, where he reportedly lived a lavish lifestyle while awaiting extradition. Eventually he was lured across the border by a disgruntled investor and arrested by U.S. authorities in 2005. He was handed a five-year jail sentence and ordered to pay $12 million in restitution to his fraud victims and a $10-million regulatory penalty.
After being granted early release, Gilliland came back to West Vancouver and changed his name to Nielsen. Soon after, he set up the illegal boiler room, hiring four people to sell shares over the phone.
