Panel fines him $500,000 and orders $442,030 in disgorgement over forged transfers and loans
A British Columbia registered representative who impersonated a client to empty his investment accounts and mortgage his home has been permanently barred from the securities industry and fined $500,000.
The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) hearing panel released its decision on October 26, following an August 4 hearing held by videoconference.
Yi Cun (Harry) Liu, a registered representative at PI Financial Corp, now called Ventum Financial Corp, in the Vancouver, British Columbia area, filed no response and did not attend either that hearing or the April 27 initial appearance.
Alongside the permanent prohibition from approval with CIRO and from employment by regulated persons in any capacity, the panel ordered Liu to disgorge $442,030 obtained by theft and fraud.
The fine splits into $450,000 for breaching CIRO’s standards of conduct and engaging in unauthorized personal financial dealings with a client, and $50,000 for failing to cooperate.
Costs were set at $50,000, below the $96,354.59 recorded in enforcement staff’s bill of costs.
Liu became the primary contact in late 2019 for a client whose first language was Cantonese and whose ability to communicate in English was limited, according to the decision.
The client travelled to China in January 2020 and COVID-19 restrictions kept him out of Canada until June 2022, leaving Liu with a key to his residence and his mail.
Liu opened a chequing account at The Bank of Nova Scotia in the client’s name on January 25, 2021, then entered a forged electronic funds transfer request into the client’s PI file on February 5, 2021.
Seventeen transfers through to July 2022 produced a net misappropriation of $52,695.38, and by July 31, 2022 the accounts held $43.31.
Copies of the client’s driver’s licence and passport were used in March 2022 to obtain a $268,400 mortgage against his residence, the panel found, and in September 2023 Liu forged the client’s identity again to draw $10,295 through a Scotiabank line of credit and credit card.
Between December 2022 and August 2023, the client also lent Liu 594,000 Chinese yuan, documented by a July 31, 2023 promissory note for 600,000 yuan, approximately $110,640 at the time.
PI neither knew of the loan nor approved it, and it has not been repaid.
Liu sent the client a WeChat screenshot in January 2024 showing holdings of approximately $200,000.
The client learned of the mortgage the same month when the lender declared it in default, and in a recorded January 15, 2024 call Liu admitted using his identity and urged him not to go to the police.
PI terminated him for cause on July 5, 2024.
“The distinguishing characteristic of the Respondent’s misconduct is the sheer breadth and duration of his deliberate dishonesty,” the panel wrote, putting total losses to the client, the lender, and Scotiabank at $442,030.38.
Liu ignored letters and emails from CIRO’s investigator from September 2024 onward and did not attend a compelled interview on May 1, 2025.
Where a failure to cooperate with the investigation forms part of the misconduct, the panel wrote, hearing panels routinely account for it with $50,000 in the overall fine.
Enforcement counsel cited precedents involving significant misappropriation in which disgorgement orders carried fines ranging between $200,000 and $500,000, with deliberately fraudulent misconduct at the higher end.
The panel applied the Sanction Guidelines CIRO published on February 1, 2024, describing them as an analytical framework rather than a prescriptive one.
The hearing panel’s decision in Re Liu was dated at Vancouver.
CIRO said Liu is not currently registered in the securities industry in any capacity.
