Competition Bureau Extradition Leads To U.S. Jail Sentences

In a first for Canada's Competition Bureau that illustrates the high degree of co-operation between Canadian and U.S. law enforcers, it announced yesterday that two Canadians who had been extradited to the United States in 2007 to face U.S. charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, and wire fraud had received lengthy prison terms in U.S. federal court.

The Bureau's release indicated that the defendants operated an entity called First Capital Consumers Group of Toronto that targeted some 40,000 American consumers with poor credit histories through telemarketing "boiler rooms". The operation was reported to have generated approximately $8 million (U.S.). Interestingly, the defendants were originally arrested in 2002 and were subject to charges under Canada's Competition Act and Criminal Code, including conspiracy, fraud, deceptive telemarketing and possession of proceeds of crime. However, those charges