Global fraudster faces new charges

wanbet-bc518

http://www.thestar.com/article/201695

Tooth-whitening con man arrested in cheque scheme

Apr 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Betsy Powell
Crime Reporter

Salim Damji pleaded guilty five years ago to defrauding up to 6,000 investors around the globe of some $78 million by conning them into believing he owned the rights to a tooth-whitening spray that would make them millionaires.

For a crime that's considered one of the largest single frauds in Canadian history, Damji was sentenced to six years and three months in prison – a term slammed by some investors as too lenient.

Yesterday, the same Toronto investigator who arrested him in 2002 charged him again. But this time it was for allegedly committing a crime on a much smaller scale: cheque fraud.

Det. Jeff Thomson of the fraud squad charged Damji, now 37, with one count of fraud over $5,000, uttering a forged document and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence for allegedly arranging deposit of a stolen cheque made out for $8,000 into someone's bank account.

"A tiger doesn't change his stripes," Thomson said yesterday after charging Damji at the Toronto (Don) Jail.

Thomson believes if he's stooping to cheque fraud, it's likely he doesn't have the stash of cash that many suspected. "Gambling has been a problem for him in the past and appears it could be at the root of the problem now," he said.

One of the conditions of his release is that he participates in "treatment/programming to address gambling addiction," according to National Parole Board documents.

While he pleaded guilty in November 2002 and expressed remorse, Damji initially claimed it wasn't greed but threats by Mob figures that led him down the path to large-scale fraud.

Damji told investors he owned a tooth-whitening product called "Instant White" and that he was about to sell the rights to the giant Colgate Palmolive Corp. Damji promised $20 back on every dollar invested, a 2,000 per cent return.

It was called an affinity fraud because Damji's targets were exclusively members of his religious community, the Ismailis. They are a sect of Islam, followers of the Aga Khan. He had credibility because prominent people believed in him, one investor said at the time.

The scheme started to come undone when Colgate denied the purchase.

His lawyer told the court Damji was also "forced" to buy nine luxury cars worth $500,000 just to show he was successful while funnelling millions from investors to organized crime lords in Costa Rica and Jamaica.

He spent about $4 million on property, including an $800,000 waterfront condominium, paid for in cash, two houses in Markham and a small strip mall in midtown Toronto, worth over $2 million.

And he was generous with other peoples' money.

An Internet search found an announcement that the Aga Khan Foundation Canada's Partnership Walk received its "largest-ever corporate donation," a $1.5 million gift from "Dr. Salim Damji and family."

But according to the parole board, Damji now admits the fraud was fuelled by his gambling addiction and that he has received various treatment regimens, the documents indicate.

The board said he bet up to $500,000 at a time – a compulsion stemming from low self-esteem as he bought "people's love with money and gifts."

Back in and out of jail since his original parole in December 2003, Damji was finally granted day parole last October, records show. Damji appears in a Toronto court tomorrow.