Aside from possibly receiving higher rates of returns on investments than the general market records, investors also didn’t take into account that Earl Jones’s company, which was in business for some 20 years, was not a registered financial institution.

The Autorité des marchés financiers, as of last Thursday, ordered a stop to all activity with Earl Jones Corp. and froze his bank accounts, or what is left of them, and has started a probe. On a few answering machines, a message posted last Friday informs investors Jones’ company is not in a position to remit any funds and that they will only get in touch with them after 30 days. The door to the Earl Jones Consultant & Administration Corporation office on Holiday Avenue has been shut for about a week.

If Earl Jones allegedly operated in total illegality for so many years, it boggles the mind why nothing was done about in until last week after cheques started bouncing. Quebec and Canadian financial regulators as well as governments that set up guidelines need to a better job of protecting consumers. This latest Montreal financial fiasco falls on the heels of the Groupe Norbourg case, where its former CEO Vincent Lacroix was convicted in December 2007 of 51 Quebec Securities Act violations for swindling 9,200 investors of about $115 million. Believe it or not, Lacroix, granted a $5,000 bail and a $50,000 undertaking last week though he hasn’t been released pending payment, is to be sent to a halfway house for nine months after serving a sixth of his eight-and-a-half-year sentence. Lacroix is still going to trial this fall to face some 200 Criminal Code charges of conspiracy, forgery, fraud and money laundering.

While there may not be any physical violence in white-collar financial crimes, people are being violated, and for some, their life-savings vanish leaving them in dire straits. The laws must be set so the punishment fits the crime. If a person is convicted of stealing millions through financial fraud, the sentence should be tougher than what is seemingly on the books in Canada. The recent Bernie Madoff case in the United States, where he was sentenced to 150 years for running an unprecedented Ponzi scheme, sends the right message.