A 24 year-old high roller, formerly from West Vancouver, who allegedly bilked investors out of $625,000, is behind bars while waiting for his bail hearing on nine charges of fraud.
Adam Alexander Keller was originally charged by the RCMP's commercial crime section in August 2012, following both a B.C. Securities Commission hearing and a criminal investigation.
But by the time charges were laid, Keller had already hightailed it out of the country and was living in Colorado - beyond the reach of Canadian authorities.
On Nov. 26 of last year, after answering to other charges in the U.S., Keller was sent back to Canada - and was promptly arrested.
His current accommodations are far cry from the lifestyle he allegedly enjoyed while defrauding a number of investors.
Back in 2009 and 2010, Keller lived in an opulent brick mansion on Sentinel Drive in West Vancouver and was known for wearing designer clothing and driving an expensive car.
Keller told investors he was an expert foreign exchange trader who would invest their money through his company Great White Capital Corp. He promised high returns and no risk to investors' capital, taking money from nine investors - most of them in West Vancouver - between June 2009 and July 2010.
According to the B.C. Securities Commission, "Keller lied about his background, telling them he was an expert foreign exchange trader who made millions while attending the University of Southern California in 2001." But none of that was true. As the securities commission panel pointed out, in 2001 Keller would have only been 12 or 13 years old.
One West Vancouver woman told a reporter she cashed in RRSPs, got a mortgage on her home and a line of credit to give money to Keller to invest.
She and her brother ended up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Keller never invested any of the money he took from investors. Instead, he transferred all of the money into his personal bank account and spent it while preparing false account statements for investors to get them to hand over more money.
In June 2011, a B.C. Securities Commission panel permanently banned Keller and ordered him to pay back the money plus a $1.6 million fine for the fraud.
By then, however, Keller was no longer in Canada.
In April of last year, Keller was arrested in New York City, where he'd apparently fled after skipping out on minor charges laid against him in Colorado.
Keller has remained in custody by consent since his arrest by RCMP in November.
Kevin Marks, the prosecutor handling Keller's case, said it's likely he will be seeking Keller's detention at his bail hearing later this month in North Vancouver provincial court.
If Keller is convicted of the crimes he is charged with, he could be facing a sentence of three to five years in jail.
