Karen Georgiou

A 40 year old Canadian stock promoter who defrauded two Bahamas based stock brokers and others of more than $30 million has been found guilty of securities fraud in Philadelphia and faces a maximum sentence of 165 years in prison.

Canadian national George Georgiou has been criminally indicted in the United States for allegedly defrauding two Bahamas based broker dealers of at least $29 million in a securities scam. Georgiou, 39, masterminded a scheme that caused losses of "approximately $25

A Canadian national whose estimated $25 million of trading losses were blamed for the collapse of Bahamas-based Caledonia Corporate Management financial services group in February has been criminally charged with an unrelated securities fraud in the United States.George Georgiou, 39, was arrested on September 18, 2008 after a criminal complaint was filed against him on the same day at the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was initially denied bail but he successfully appealed and was released on October 3 after posting bond of $2 million.

A trading loss of $25 million by a Canadian client with a checkered past has emerged as the principal reason for the collapse of a Bahamas-based financial services group earlier this year.Caledonia Corporate Management Limited allowed 39-year-old Ontario resident George Georgiou to start trading without providing any cash or security of his own, instead lending him millions of dollars and pledging other clients' assets as collateral, which were subsequently sold to meet a margin call. As Caledonia's problems mounted, the firm's principals then siphoned off virtually all of its remaining assets for no consideration to new companies they created, managed and controlled, leaving behind a shell that had unaudited assets of US$269,113 and liabilities that management listed as US$57,391 but which, in reality, will include the full amount of Georgiou's trading losses.