| | |  Americas & Beyond 
Alyn Waage Facing the Music in Canada
 Tony Blais, QMI Agency
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September 09, 2010
| | Alyn Richard Waage ran his scam from a cliffside mansion in Puerto Vallarta between 1999 and 2001. (Canada.com) | |
Edmonton - An Edmonton fraudster jailed in the U.S. for masterminding a multi-million-dollar Internet investment scam is now back home to face the music for a local big-money fraud.
Alyn Richard Waage, 64, appeared in Edmonton’s provincial court Wednesday on numerous charges including 44 counts of mortgage and real estate fraud dating back to the 1990s.
Waage, who was in the news in 2008 when the Canadian government was trying to get Ottawa’s Brenda Martin – his former personal chef at his posh villa in Puerto Vallarta – out of a Mexican jail, had recently been in a federal prison in North Carolina.
However, The Sun has learned that Waage was let out on May 21 after serving just over half of the 10-year term he was given in a California court in 2005 for a $60-million Internet fraud scheme.
He was then ordered deported and Canadian authorities escorted him to Edmonton on a 1998 arrest warrant stemming from him skipping bail and fleeing the country.
Waage is now sitting in the Edmonton Remand Centre and is slated to be back in court Sept. 22.
He is accused of defrauding the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and several mortgage companies of hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgage defaults on two Edmonton condo developments in 1993 and early 1994. He is also accused of a $441,000 real estate fraud.
In 2004, Waage pleaded guilty in California to mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to money launder relating to an investment company called Tri-West he started in 1999.
Investigators say Waage conned 15,000 investors in more than 60 countries out of just under $60 million U.S.
The scheme started to unravel in April 2001 when Waage was arrested in Mexico carrying $4.5 million US in undeclared cheques and money orders made payable to a front company.
He made bail and fled to Costa Rica, but the FBI extradited him to California.
About half the money Waage scammed was spent buying property in Mexico and Costa Rica. There was also a luxury $818,0000 yacht, jewels, 10 vehicles and a $150,000 helicopter.
Martin returned to Canada in May 2008 after spending more than two years behind bars in Mexico after being arrested in connection with Waage’s scam.
tony.blais(at)sunmedia.ca
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