A convicted fraudster with Beijing links is now running to be mayor of Toronto
Weizhen Tang (唐炜臻) held positions at multiple United Front groups and organized a huge rally in 2008 supporting Beijing’s violent crackdown on Tibetan protesters.
Weizhen Tang (唐炜臻), a Chinese Canadian community leader and a convicted fraudster who ran a $50-million Ponzi scheme 10+ years ago, has now officially joined the Toronto mayoral race 2023, according to recent reports on various Chinese-language media in Canada.
The list of candidates on the website of the City of Toronto shows Tang indeed has registered last week (April 11, 2023) as a mayoral candidate in the upcoming municipal by-election in June.
A photo of Tang proudly holding the candidate registration papers in the city hall has been posted on a number of Chinese websites. But the registration clerk smiling behind Tang would probably never know this candidate was sentenced to six years in prison in 2012 for having caused 200+ people to lose $24 million in a huge Ponzi-style investment scheme.
Neither would the clerk know that Tang used to be a superstar in the Chinese Canadian community a decade ago, frequently rubbing elbows with Canadian politicians and high-level United Front officials in China.
A self-proclaimed ‘Chinese Warren Buffett’ who ended up with 6-year jail time and permanent bans from selling investment
Weizhen Tang was born in 1958 in the Hunan province (湖南省) of mainland China. He came to Canada in 1990 to study biology at the University of Waterloo and has stayed in Canada ever since.
Tang set up a series of companies in Toronto since 1997, providing investment-related services. Many of his clients were Chinese people in Canada, the U.S. and China, according to Jack Jia (捷克佳), a well-known Chinese-language reporter in Toronto.
Advertising himself to be an investment genius and the ‘Chinese Warren Buffett’, Tang obtained plenty of public attention. He wrote extensively in Chinese-language media about financial management and investment. He held senior titles at various organizations and organized high-profile events including Chinese new year galas featuring China’s top diplomats and Canadian politicians. In 2006, Tang published a book in China, “The Chinese Way to Buffet Wealth 1% Weekly Return: Weizhen Tang, the King of 1%”. Along with the book launch, Chinese newspapers published a lot of hype reports about Tang, praising him to be ‘the Chinese voice in the financial market in North America’, ‘investment miracle in the age of heroes’, and so on.
In 2008, Tang was granted the Best Integrity Award of the ‘2008 China Top Ten Financial Intelligence People’ at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse (钓鱼台国宾馆) in Beijing. Diaoyutai Guesthouse is an important venue in China, where Chinese state leadership offers receptions to visiting foreign dignitaries.
As he said in his book, Tang promised a 1% weekly return to all the clients, but the condition was the client must invest at least $50,000 with his company, preferably $150,000 or even $1 million. When people found out Tang’s investment project was nothing but a Ponzi scheme around 2009, Tang had raised a total of $50 million from about 260 investors all over the globe.
In June 2009, Tang and his companies were charged with 12 counts of breaching the Securities Act in Ontario. In Jan. 2013, Tang was sentenced to 6 years in prison along with a $2.8-million fine. In addition, the Ontario Security Commission (OSC) issued an order in 2016 that permanently bans Tang from trading or acquiring any securities or derivatives, working as a registrant in the financial industry, or serving as a director or officer of a company or investment firm.
Before that, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also issued a lifetime ban against Tang, forbidding him from purchase or sale of securities in the United States.
Weizhen Tang was familiar with various Canadian politicians including Michael Chan (陈国治) and Geng Tan (谭耕)
Besides investment business, Weizhen Tang was interested in politics, or at least in meeting with politicians. Group photos of Tang and politicians are still available on many websites today.
Tang (right) and former Ontario MPP minister Michael Chan (陈国治, left) at the 2nd North American Chinese Wealth Summit in Jan. 2009. The event was hosted by the Weizhen Tang Wealth Club in Jan. 2019.
Weizhen Tang (2nd from left) and his wife Hong Xiao (萧虹, 1st from right) posed for a photo in Feb. 2008 with Zhu Taoying (朱桃英, 2nd from right), China’s then-Consul-General in Toronto and Jiang Dianchang (姜殿昌), a Chinese Consul in Toronto.
Weihen Tang (1st from right) at the 2008 Chinese New Year Gala with Michael Chan (3rd from left) and Zhu Taoying (2nd from right), China’s then-Consul-General in Toronto.
Weizhen Tang (1st from right) posed for a photo around 2008 with Geng Tan (谭耕, 1st left) and Ling Zhengming (李正明), China’s Deputy Consul-General in Toronto.
Weizhen Tang shook hands with Geng Tan in Dec. 2008 at a meeting hosted by the Hunan Fellow Association of Canada (加拿大湖南同乡会). Tang was one of the founding members of the Association and once served as president.
Tan also served as president for a period of time. Tan was elected as a Liberal MP in 2015 in Don Valley North but gave up re-election in 2019 after Stella Yu (俞荧), Tan’s former assistant and extramarital girlfriend told the National Post about Tan refusing to pay for child support for their baby daughter. Han Dong (董晗鹏) was elected as Liberal MP in the same riding in 2019 and 2021, but recently quit the Liberal caucus after a Global News report alleging Dong once advised the Chinese Consulate to delay the release of the Two Michaels for the Liberal’s political benefit.
Geng Tan’s wife Laura Huang (黄幸来) has been on the board of the Hunan Fellow Association of Canada since 2001. Weizhen Tang said he was one of Huang’s college classmates.
Weizhen Tang had close ties with the Chinese government and held senior positions at United Front organizations
As a Canadian citizen, Weizhen Tang had close ties with Chinese government officials.
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