Reaction to our most recent video, found at “South Simcoe Police Service Now Omitting and Falsifying Evidence to Protect Loan Sharks”, has quite clearly caught the attention of tens of thousands of Simcoe County taxpayers, and with good reason.

We have shown through the presentation of evidence that detectives and top brass at the South Simcoe Police Service seem very eager to protect the loan sharks at Verico the Mortgage Station, as they have so far tried to ignore the claims of criminal activity, and then dismiss the fully supported allegations, and most recently omit the facts and alter calculations in favour of the accused.

Now, despite the publication of these facts, from the multi-million and multi-billion-dollar companies, and from within the South Simcoe Police Service . . . crickets.

It has been more than two weeks since the August 4, 2023, meeting between our producer, a former international journalist and technical specialist for private investigations, and Detective Constable Muto, the supposed expert in financial crime. That was when Muto told the victim of this crime that he was going to omit the largest portion of the cost of borrowing, and amortise the cost over a full year rather than encapsulate the offence within the actual time frame of 46-48 days, and that he was knowingly going to use the wrong formula to calculate a percentage rather than the interest that was charged. By doing that, he could reduce the amount of interest charged by a factor of eight, and in doing so eliminate the charge of usury or loan sharking.

It is two weeks later, and we have heard nothing, so we move on in our quest for answers as to why the South Simcoe Police Service are cooking the books to help rich crooks.

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The written content of the video

South Simcoe Police Service Cooking the Books to Help Rich Crooks

On August 21, 1987, Columbia Pictures released the film “The Big Easy”. It was a light-hearted detective movie about crime and corruption in New Orleans. In this theatrical representation of police officers, every cop was on the take and so-called tips and gratuities were paid by every business. The officers and detectives called the widespread grift the “Widows and Orphans Fund”, while the Federal Prosecutor who was in town to investigate a mob murder called their grift culture bribery, corruption, fraud, and abuse of public trust.

Most of us are seldom if ever in a position to abuse our job to collect money we have not earned from other people whose lives could be adversely influenced by the authority that has been entrusted to us. However, police officers, and especially detectives, are often in a position where if they are motivated correctly they can and sometimes will look the other way or deceive those they are sworn to serve.

In the real world, you don’t have to travel to the southernmost city of America to find this kind of corruption. From what we are learning both personally and through contact with area residents, you don’t need to go any further than the jurisdiction of the South Simcoe Police Service.

It has been more than a year since we first started reporting on this story of loan sharking and mortgage skimming that were committed by Renee Dadswell, with the assistance of David Flude and Lisa Purchase; all of whom are brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. Throughout that time, we have made these fully documented claims of criminal abuses of trust that we have said repeatedly were committed by agents of a multi-million-dollar corporation, and we have done so in our own name, without hiding the source of the allegations.

Regardless, these provincially regulated mortgage brokers and the owners of Verico, the Mortgage Station, have come up short when seeking the courage needed to challenge our allegations. They have chosen instead to hide from our cameras and not defend their actions or refute our claims. Most people understand that it is only the guilty who hides.

We have also been told that they are claiming we are lying, yet they have failed to show the resolve necessary to take us to court to seek damages based on defamation, or to seek a cease-and-desist order or other injunctive relief.

It is also a crime under section 372 (1) of the Criminal Code of Canada to knowingly publish “False Information”. “Everyone commits an offence who, with intent to injure or alarm a person, conveys information that they know is false, or causes such information to be conveyed by letter or any means of telecommunication.” The punishment for such malicious action is noted as being “guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-372.html

Our team members remain free, and no armed squad of officers has stormed our studio. Their restraint is most likely the result of their understanding that we are an established media service and we have a respectable reach. We also have more than enough evidence to support our claims that would take about three minutes to present to any impartial judge, who would no doubt see that the claim was nothing but a SLAPP civil or criminal action that is intended to intimidate rather than administer justice.

We are not currently defending any kind of legal tort that if we were lying would have been served upon us long ago by lawyers representing the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, the management team of Verico Financial Group Inc., or the board of directors of the HomeEquity Bank. We are not being silent, and we are in fact relaying the truth to thousands of people. Regardless, they are not willing to defend their actions, which is speaking volumes to our growing number of followers who are now coming to our website from across Canada and the United States.

If what we are saying is not the truth, any of the parties we have discussed here could shut us down. Instead, the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, the managers of Verico Financial Group Inc., the board of directors of HomeEquity Bank, and now the officers and detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service are choosing to simply hide from our allegations rather than disproving them.

We have also been direct in our assertions that given their attitude toward this case and their willingness to yield to the demands of the wealthy brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station that the detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service likely have their own version of the New Orleans so-called widows and orphans fund through which they turn a blind eye to certain crimes when sufficiently motivated to do so.

In fact, during a recorded interview at the Bradford detachment of the South Simcoe Police Service, Detective Constable Muto told our producer that in order to exonerate the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station he was going to simply dismiss the largest component of the cost of borrowing and amortize what was charged over a year instead of locking it into the 46 to 48 day time period during which the crime was committed. Omitting evidence is the crime of omission, while knowingly falsifying evidence is obstruction, which is punishable by a prison term not to exceed two years.

Why would any police force accept such allegations by us if not for the fact that they have no idea what evidence we have available to present in a court of law filled with reporters from across the province if not the country?

We have reported how, for more than a year, the allegations and hundreds of pages of evidence were simply ignored by the Criminal Investigations Division. Then we posted how after we went public, and we had contacted the Mayor and Council of Innisfil Township, the file was assigned to a detective who blindly abided by the wishes of the wealthy brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station to such an extent that he dismissed the allegations without even contacting the victim of the crime or seeking further evidence.

Most recently, we showed how the “Specially Trained Financial Detective” is knowingly using false calculations to fraudulently present the criminal level of interest as being acceptable under the law. He is doing this by relying on a formula for percentages rather than the proper calculation for interest. By doing this, he evidently believes he can fraudulently reduce the rate of interest charged from nearly 200% to just 25%.

All it will take is to summons a Forensic Accountant to look at the figures for the court to see what is truly happening in this case. We will have to see if the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Financial Crime Division of the Ontario Provincial Police agree with this detective’s calculations as the detective and senior officers of the South Simcoe Police Service are now simply ignoring our producer so the file is now being sent up the ladder.

Two weeks have now passed since our producer met with the “Specially Trained Financial Detective”, and it has been almost as long since the Internationally experienced journalist and former Technical Specialist for private investigations forwarded an email to Detective Muto, which he carbon-copied to both Inspector Julio Fernandes and Chief John Van Dyke of the South Simcoe Police Service.

“My research shows that your assessment of the amount charged is indeed incorrect as your calculation is fundamentally flawed. The standard formula for calculating simple interest, as is accepted across the banking and financial world, is I equals P times R times T, or Interest equals Principal times Rate of Interest times Time. By choosing to remove time as a contributing and important factor, you skewed the results, which I believe was the intent.”

We have provided a link to the full email on the root page of this video. So far, there has been no response from Detective Constable Muto, Inspector Julio Fernandes, or Chief John Van Dyke. HTTPS://www.fivepointsmedia.ca/images/files/23-08-06-your-assessment-of-the-interest-charged-is-fundamentally-flawed-as-it-is-based-on-an-incorrect-mathematical-formula.pdf

This is a story that is truly reminiscent of David and Goliath, but in this version, the roles are for some reason reversed. Here, the giant multi-million and multi-billion-dollar corporations are clearly afraid to file any claims in a court of law that will be reviewed by a judge that could be used to try to silence a small not-for-profit community channel that exists to help charities, benevolent groups, and people at risk. We should be nothing but a fly in their chardonnay, but instead of sweeping us aside as an annoyance, they are afraid to take any action.

When we first published, people were timid about liking and sharing any story that involved the South Simcoe Police Service, but now that is not the case. People are seeing the truth of our story, and they are justifiably angered to learn through evidence how some officers and detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service, which is publicly funded and obligated to work for everybody, seem much more motivated to help only the contributing members of the South Simcoe Widows and Orphans Fund.

If true, such a two-tiered system of law enforcement puts normal people at risk. Consider if somebody is trying to break into your home, but you are not on the Widows and Orphans list. Meanwhile, at the same time, a business that shills out the payments is also experiencing an issue. Which emergency will be the priority? Would it be “Protect with Courage, Serve with Compassion” or “We take care of our own.”

That is why we are telling this story, as we feel that every potentially vulnerable senior who visits Verico the Mortgage Station looking for help with a CHIP Reverse Mortgage made available through the HomeEquity Bank is now at risk of being defrauded, as was our producer, who is both a senior and a veteran.

So far, every person and business associated with this story, including the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station, the managers of Verico Financial Group Inc., and the board of directors of HomeEquity Bank have refused to speak with us on camera.

The HomeEquity Bank also tried to suppress our journalistic rights that are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by filing a legally unsupportable claim of copyright violations that under the Copyright Act do not apply to journalists. Our video remains online, and we have had a chat with Facebook.

The law is not governed by those with special interests in the small jurisdiction of the South Simcoe Police Service, and there is no chance of our team backing off on this story because too many potentially vulnerable seniors are at risk of being defrauded.

Ironically, it is the collective decision to duck and cover and the cowardly inability of these powerful corporations to be forthcoming that has caused our story to grow so rapidly across the country, while also attracting considerable interest from mainstream media. Experienced journalists know that when something seems dramatically out of balance there is almost always some unseen force at play. So, in this case, why is the elephant so obviously afraid of the mouse?

Our reach now is five times what it was when we started, as average people, websites with an interest in this story, Facebook groups, senior organizations, and brokers of competing companies spread the word of our fully-supported exposé. August is normally the quietest month online as people are often on vacation, so imagine what will happen in a few weeks when kids are back in school, the camping and trips are just a memory, and people spend far more time online.

According to messages and emails we have received from Simcoe County residents, our story is just scratching the surface of corruption within that county. We have not fact-checked all of the claims, but many are corroborated with considerable evidence, or by more than one independent source.

We have also now reached out to other sources of funding as this small story about a corrupt and abusive mortgage brokerage is growing exponentially in both scope and scale and is becoming far more interesting to independent broadcasters in Canada and even the US. The response has been positive, and we expect to be able soon to start researching past claims of abuse against not only the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station, but also Verico Financial Group Inc., the HomeEquity Bank, and the South Simcoe Police Service.

As part of our coverage of this story, we have exposed how the HomeEquity Bank, which caters to seniors through the CHIP Reverse Mortgage, is deliberately and irresponsibly turning a blind eye to obvious loan sharking as was committed by brokers that work as their arm-length agents at Verico the Mortgage Station. This has led to past employees and people with knowledge of the matter advising us of several issues concerning the bank and its mortgages that we are now working to substantiate. If true, our documentary could go a long way to helping seniors avoid losing their homes and life savings to less-than-ethical means of repossession.

HomeEquity Bank was provided with non-redacted copies of the evidence that if calculated pursuant to interest calculations that are standard in the banking and lending industries can only lead to the acknowledgement of usury, or loan sharking. Based on the data of our visitor logs, they have also watched all our videos, apparently several times, and have presumably read all of our written content. Like the South Simcoe Police Service, the HomeEquity Bank has no excuse not to take action to protect their often-vulnerable senior clients, whom they claim to care about through their corporate propaganda.

That corporate bank, which is now owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, has worked hard to generate a corporate culture in which they are depicted to care about seniors. Now, as a result of their association with the loan sharks at Verico the Mortgage Station, that well-groomed fantasy is stained with crimes against their target market and come September more of their clients will come to learn the truth.

More than a year ago, our producer wrote to W Mark Squire, the President, and CEO of Verico Financial Group Inc., advising him of the fraud being committed by the brokers at Verico the Mortgage Station. Squire declined our request for an on-camera interview, stating that he was going to wait for the results of the police investigation. It was almost like he knew about the special relationship the brokers had with the detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service. Since then, he has chosen to ignore all our public allegations. Squire and his management team have also refused to take any action in defence of their company’s name.

This is not how honest businesses or legitimate police services operate. They are elephants, and they do not hide from the mouse. However, that is exactly what is happening, and everybody sees it, which is why our viewership and following are growing so rapidly. Honest business owners stand up and defend their names, and police do not simply ignore crimes and disregard evidence, and they certainly do not go out of their way to fraudulently disprove claims of serious crime by lying about the math they use.

We are learning from local residents, through reports that we have not fully fact-checked, that this story is far from the first of its kind for either the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station or the detectives of the South Simcoe Police Service.

The difference, in this case, is that our producer has successfully fought against Bay Street law firms in the Superior Court multiple times, costing abusers hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. He has also taken on and exposed corruption by police officers as part of his past reporting. Our claims are also fully supported by evidence, which is hard for either lawyers or motivated police officers to work past, and we happen to operate a state-of-the-art broadcast-quality media facility.

This time, the brokers of Verico the Mortgage Station picked the wrong victim with whom to try their scams, and karma cannot be better customized and delivered.

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