BCSC bans fraud artist from VSE — Cash from Dia Met scheme used to pay gambling debts

A man serving two years in jail for swindling 10 British Columbia residents out of more than $150,000 was ordered to pay $100,000 and slapped with a lifetime trading ban in a ruling by the British Columbia Securities Commission.

Between February 1993 and March 1997, Norman Armstrong convinced people to entrust him with money to invest in Dia Met Minerals, the company that discovered diamonds in the Northwest Territories in 1991.

Claiming to be a helicopter pilot for Dia Met and a friend of one of the company’s executives, Armstrong told his victims that he could offer them shares in the Kelowna-based junior for as low as 10 cents apiece, which he then offered to sell on the Toronto Stock Exchange for $5. Dia Met traded on both the Vancouver and Toronto stock exchanges at the time of the fraud.

Armstrong kept the money, using a portion to pay off gambling debts. Among his victims were a retired couple who lost $24,000 and a recent immigrant who gave him $2,000.

He was convicted in British Columbia in 1997 on seven counts of fraud over $5,000 and sentenced to two years in jail. He was also ordered to pay $139,000 in restitution to his victims.

In a ruling that described Armstrong as “a true con artist,” a BCSC panel barred him for life from trading on the exchange or holding executive positions on a VSE-listed company. He was also ordered to pay $100,000 in administrative penalties.