Positions of Trust: Inside 2026's Wave of Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud Cases — and What It Means for B.C.

I want to be upfront about why I'm writing this. It would be easy to string these stories together into something that implies a single conspiracy, and that would be irresponsible and untrue. I'm not doing that. What I am doing is what I think a market-education resource should do: laying out what's actually been reported, sourced properly, so you understand the landscape of risk in private and professional real estate transactions right now — and what actually protects you within it.

The Story Making Headlines: A Former MP's Law Firm and CIBC

Raj Grewal was elected Liberal MP for Brampton East in 2015 and resigned from caucus in 2018, citing a gambling addiction and millions of dollars in related debt. He has not held elected office since. His more recent legal troubles stem from his post-political career: he founded RSG Law Professional Corporation and became president of a related development company, RSG Group.

CIBC has now asked a court to appoint a receiver over businesses run by Grewal, arguing in its filing that given the volume of active litigation and investigations against Grewal, his father, RSG Law, and related companies, they are not positioned to repay what's owed under CIBC's loan agreements. Separately, Grewal is facing more than a dozen civil claims seeking repayment of tens of millions of dollars, with total amounts in dispute reported as high as $247 million — the largest single claim, filed in June by members of the Cesana family (owners of the Hardrock Group concrete companies), seeks $137 million allegedly borrowed by Grewal and guaranteed by family members.

In July, the Law Society of Ontario moved to suspend Grewal, citing 26 complaints against him and an associate involving alleged misappropriation of trust funds, unauthorized charges against properties, fraudulent mortgage discharges, and falsified title insurance. According to evidence made public as part of that suspension proceeding, audio recordings reportedly show Grewal discussing fraudulent mortgage loans totalling roughly $30 million.

Closer to Home: A Vancouver Police Detective Charged With Defrauding Investors

On September 3, 2026, Vancouver Police charged one of their own — Kalwinder (Kal) Singh Dosanjh, a 26-year VPD member who previously served as a senior detective in the department's own Financial Crimes Unit. Dosanjh, also the founder and CEO of the KidsPlay Youth Foundation, a well-regarded anti-gang and youth outreach charity, was charged with four counts of fraud over $5,000, four counts of theft over $5,000, breach of trust by a public officer, and two further counts relating to the charity itself.

Police allege the offences occurred between December 2017 and July 2025, and say 19 victims lost a combined $3 million, tied to investors in three housing development projects — Azura, Queen's Park, and Sahara. Business partner Sarabjit Singh Gill was charged as a co-defendant. The case followed a two-and-a-half-year covert investigation, and VPD Chief Steve Rai has recommended Dosanjh be suspended without pay.

Whatever the outcome, the case underscores something worth sitting with: even a career spent investigating financial crime doesn't exempt a person from being accused of committing it. That's not a comment on Dosanjh specifically — it's a comment on why due diligence needs to be a system, not a judgment call about who "seems" trustworthy.

British Columbia's Own Enforcement Record

The Grewal and Dosanjh cases are drawing headlines because of who's involved. But B.C.'s own mortgage and real estate regulator, BCFSA, has been steadily working through a genuinely large body of enforcement action — most of it far less publicized.

The Chaudhary Network

The largest of these, by dollar value, involves Jay Kanth Chaudhary, an unregistered "shadow broker" alleged to have arranged more than $500 million in mortgage loans between 2009 and 2018 using falsified income documents. More than 25 licensed real estate agents and mortgage brokers were investigated for facilitating or benefiting from the scheme; 23 ultimately faced BCFSA discipline. BCFSA referred the matter to the RCMP, which declined to pursue criminal charges, citing jurisdictional constraints — so the case concluded in March 2025 with regulatory penalties only, no criminal charges laid against anyone involved.

Jovi Realty, Lighthouse Realty, and Balpreet Singh Bal

In November 2025, BCFSA froze the trust accounts of Balpreet Singh Bal's brokerages — Jovi Realty, Lighthouse Realty, Amex-Fraseridge Realty, and Bal Realty Services — after finding $2.75 million had been improperly moved between accounts, alongside evidence Bal was allegedly preparing to relocate outside Canada. Licences were suspended, and in April 2026 the B.C. Supreme Court appointed a receiver to oversee the brokerages' affairs. BCFSA's investigation, still ongoing, also alleges Bal offered mortgage and investment services without registration — connecting a real estate trust-account failure directly to unregistered mortgage activity.

A Pattern, Not an Anomaly

In just the past 18 months, BCFSA has also issued consent orders against several other mortgage professionals for conduct ranging from falsified documents to operating without authorization:

• Amandeep Duggal (Duggal Mortgages) — registration cancelled and an $80,000 penalty after falsified income documents, including fabricated T4s and bank statements, were found on 8 of 98 reviewed mortgage applications.
• Harvinder Makkar (Centum Mortgage Solutions) — $55,000 penalty for continuing to arrange mortgages for roughly 11 months after her brokerage closed and BCFSA had told her she was no longer authorized to operate.
• Andrew Yau (HYI Finance Inc.) — $38,500 penalty for operating as an unregistered private mortgage lender.
• Alan Fetterly (VERICO Compass Mortgage Group) — $28,370 penalty for failing to disclose a relationship to a co-lender and providing required disclosure forms after funding had already occurred.

None of these four cases made national news. Together, though, they show a regulator with an active, ongoing enforcement docket — this isn't a rare event, it's a recurring one.

When Investors Lose Their Principal

A different category of risk involves money handed over specifically as an investment — private or "syndicated" mortgage lending, where individuals pool funds that are then lent out to borrowers, typically through a mortgage investment corporation (MIC) or similar structure.

Between 2018 and 2023, Victoria-based mortgage broker Greg Martel took in $301 million through his company, My Mortgage Auction Corp, under the premise it was funding short-term bridge loans. When investors began seeking their money back, the B.C. Supreme Court appointed PwC as receiver. PwC's investigation concluded the business had made no actual loans corresponding to what investors were told — roughly $210 million was paid out to investors using other investors' money, and the remaining $91 million went to options trading losses, failed side ventures, and personal spending. Martel disappeared in 2023 and his whereabouts remain unknown; a B.C. Securities Commission investigation is ongoing.

More recently, Amber Mortgage Investment Corp, a Richmond-based mortgage financing company connected to a troubled Vancouver development, is facing multiple 2026 lawsuits alleging it failed to return investor funds after reportedly paying out only some investors selectively earlier in the year. This case is still unfolding, and nothing alleged in the current litigation has been proven in court.

The North Vancouver Currency Exchange Case — and Why FINTRAC Didn't Save Anyone's Money

Regular readers of this blog know I already covered the Apadana Currency Exchange collapse when it broke last month, but it belongs in this piece because it illustrates something the other cases don't: what happens when money moves outside real estate entirely, through a business type most people assume is regulated the same way a bank is.

Apadana, located on Marine Drive in North Vancouver and specializing in transfers between Canada and Iran, froze all deposits, withdrawals, and transactions in August 2026. Owner Hamidreza Karimi has acknowledged owing between $4 million and $5 million to 200–300 customers. At least nine small claims suits have been filed so far, with combined claims exceeding $161,000 — each individually capped at $35,000 under B.C.'s small claims rules. Some affected customers have also filed complaints with North Vancouver RCMP.

FINTRAC has been noticeably more active on the enforcement side lately, even if it can't return anyone's money after the fact. In March 2025, it fined Burnaby-based Crystal Currency Exchange Inc. $348,067.50 for failing to file required suspicious transaction reports. In November 2025, it fined Vancouver real estate brokerage LeHomes Realty Premier $149,886 for a failure to file a suspicious transaction report and an inadequate anti-money-laundering compliance program — a reminder that FINTRAC's reach extends to real estate brokerages themselves, not just currency exchanges and mortgage lenders. New rules that took effect October 1, 2025 now also require identity verification on real estate transactions even for unrepresented parties, closing a gap that previously allowed money to move through some deals with limited scrutiny.

Why Now? A Brief Look at the Backdrop

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Mortgage delinquencies are rising across the country, and while Ontario — Grewal's home market — is furthest along, the same data shows British Columbia isn't far behind, particularly in our priciest markets.

That last stat is the one I'd draw your attention to. It doesn't come from a BC-specific outlier report — it's the same Equifax dataset used to describe Ontario's stress, and it names Vancouver directly. This isn't a "wait and see if it eventually reaches us" story. The pressure is already measurable here, in the same higher-value mortgage segment many of our clients are in.

What Actually Protects You — And What Doesn't

If there's one practical thread running through every case above, it's this: "trust account" is not just a phrase, it's a specific regulatory structure — and it only exists in certain kinds of transactions.

• When you buy or sell real estate through a licensed brokerage, deposit funds are held in a regulated trust account, subject to BCFSA oversight, audit requirements, and (as the Bal/Jovi case shows) real regulatory consequences — including receivership — when that trust is breached.
• When you work with a registered mortgage broker or lender, similar oversight applies, and BCFSA's enforcement record shows it does act, even on smaller, unglamorous cases that never make headlines.
• When you invest through a private or syndicated mortgage fund, the protections depend entirely on how that fund is structured and registered — Martel's My Mortgage Auction Corp and the still-unresolved Amber Mortgage litigation both show how much can go wrong here specifically because oversight is thinner.
• When you send money through a currency exchange or similar money services business, as Apadana's customers learned, there is effectively no fund-recovery mechanism at all if the business fails or misappropriates funds — FINTRAC can punish the business after the fact, but it cannot get your money back.

What I'll Be Watching Next

This is very much a live story, not a closed one. A few threads I'll be watching, and will update this piece as they develop:

• Whether CIBC's receivership application against Grewal's businesses proceeds, and what a court-appointed receiver's findings ultimately show.
• How the criminal charges against Kal Dosanjh move through the court process.
• Whether BCFSA's ongoing investigation into Balpreet Singh Bal and Jovi/Lighthouse/Amex-Fraseridge results in further discipline beyond the current receivership.
• Whether B.C.'s mortgage delinquency numbers continue climbing in the next Equifax and CMHC releases, particularly in the higher-value segment where Vancouver was named alongside Toronto.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about trust accounts, mortgage regulation, and protecting yourself in real estate and private lending transactions.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Several matters discussed in this article — including allegations against Raj Grewal, Kalwinder Singh Dosanjh, and the parties involved in the Amber Mortgage Investment Corp litigation — involve ongoing legal proceedings and unproven allegations. Nothing in this article should be read as an assertion of guilt or liability; individuals and companies named are entitled to a presumption of innocence and a full defence through the appropriate legal and regulatory processes. All figures are sourced from the publicly available reporting and regulatory records listed above, current as of September 5, 2026, and are subject to change as these matters proceed.