Hells Angel to appear in court as potential extradition looms over $100m fraud

Courtney Vasseur once worked for a Langley man convicted of a $6 million fraud

A Lower Mainland Hells Angel with ties to Langley will be in court this month facing extradition over an alleged $100 million fraud scheme.

*The B.C. Hells Angels celebrated their 40th anniversary with a party that drew hundreds of outlaw bikers – and almost as many police – to Langley. (Langley Advance Times files)*

Courtney “Court” Vasseur, a member of the elite Nomads Hells Angels chapter, is one of 10 people charged with fraud in the United States last year. The FBI alleged Vasseur and others were part of a $100 million international pump-and-dump stock scheme.

The hearing on Oct. 30 in B.C. Supreme Court is for an application, according to courthouse staff. A date for the full extradition hearing has not been set.

Vasseur, who allegedly went by aliases including “Black Water,” “Cyril Vetsch,” “Arctic Shark” and “Oscar Devries” during the scheme, is allegedly linked to $35 million of the $100 million total in the schemes.

He’s facing securities and wire fraud charges that could each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars in the U.S., if he’s convicted.

Persons charged with a criminal offence are considered not guilty until the charges are proven in court.

A pump-and-dump scheme is a con in which a low-value or worthless stock is promoted and “pumped” in a variety of ways, including via online promotion claiming the stock will go up in value, or fake trades between people in on the con, which makes the stock look more valuable than it actually is.

Vasseur formerly worked for Aggressive Roadbuilders, a Langley-area company that went under in 2008 after accountants and investigators discovered its head, Matthew Brooks, and his comptroller, Kirk Roberts, had defrauded Scotiabank of $6 million.

Brooks, in an interview with the Langley Advance Times last year, vehemently insisted that Vasseur never got any money from the Scotiabank fraud and had nothing to do with it.

Vasseur has never been convicted of a crime in Canada, but in 2013, he was charged with possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, after his Cadillac Escalade crashed into the back of a bus at Cambie and 16th in Vancouver.

Both Vasseur and the man at the wheel, Craig Leonard Retvedt, were discovered passed out due to accidental fentanyl overdose – an open baggie of the drug was found in a console between the seats. Both men were charged, but because there was not enough evidence to say which of the men had brought the drug into the vehicle, both were found not guilty in a B.C. Supreme Court trial in 2017.

“One of the two men clearly was in possession of at least the powder, and possibly both of them were,” Justice Heather Holmes noted in her 2017 ruling.

Source: LANGLEY ADVANCE TIMES