OSC v. April Vuong and Hao Quach (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Judgment entered

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In 2023 the Ontario Securities Commission reciprocated the criminal convictions of April Vuong and Hao Quach for defrauding investors of $5.1 million in a scheme resembling a Ponzi scheme, and on September 29, 2023 made their market bans permanent.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

Vuong and Quach were convicted in the Ontario Superior Court of fraud over $5,000 for an investment scam run from 2007 to 2012 that raised $5.1 million through promissory notes; the staff allegations say some money went to pay other investors in the manner of a Ponzi scheme and some to personal spending. Their appeals were dismissed in October 2021. They had earlier agreed a settlement with the commission with time-limited bans, expiring in 2023 for Quach and 2028 for Vuong.

The adjudicator's order of September 29, 2023 bans both permanently from trading, acquiring securities, relying on exemptions, acting as directors or officers, and acting as registrants or promoters. The record previously showed the matter as dismissed, apparently because the decision records that their criminal appeals were dismissed.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the tribunal or the court it relies on describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2023-06-15 Statement of Allegations
2. 2023-06-16 Notice of Hearing
3. 2023-09-29 Reasons and Decision
4. 2023-09-29 Reasons and Decision

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• Tribunal proceeding
• Statement of Allegations
• Notice of Hearing
• Reasons and Decision
• Reasons and Decision

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.