It came after Nguyen, a Surrey resident, pleaded guilty in May to six counts of using forged documents to arrange fraudulent mortgages in a scheme authorities said was linked to the illicit marijuana trade.

The plot generated $2 million in profits, according to the Financial Institutions Commission (FICOM), the agency that regulates B.C. mortgage brokers and real estate agents.

Nguyen operated Vancouver-based Express Mortgages with real estate agents Hoang Ngoc Ngo and Linh Phu Ngo, who have also been charged.

Hoang Ngoc Ngo pleaded guilty to three counts in June, but has not yet been sentenced. His daughter, Linh Phu Ngo, has not entered a plea.

The three originally faced a total of 91 charges related to an elaborate scheme that used forged letters of employment, fake T4 slips and banking records to obtain mortgages on several houses. Investigators said a review of mortgages arranged by Nguyen showed several were used to buy homes concealing indoor grow ops. In many cases, the people listed as the registered owners of the homes did not live there and told FICOM the purchase loans had been arranged without their knowledge.

A 2004 ruling by the provincial Registrar of Mortgage Brokers, Alan Clark, found Nguyen, a registered sub-mortgage broker, had submitted false documents, including employment letters, income verification letters and bank passbooks to arrange mortgages and had breached several sections of the Mortgage Brokers Act.

“Nguyen himself admitted that he had placed over 900 mortgages and not one was done in compliance with the Act,” Clark said, noting “the average sub-mortgage brokers does 30 deals a year.”

Nguyen was fined $50,000 plus another $36,000 in costs by the registrar.

The fraud was discovered in January 2003 when the Bank of Montreal contacted FICOM about “numerous irregularities” involving Nguyen loans, including undisclosed second mortgages. Then HSBC came forward with identical concerns. In all, 162 mortgages were examined by FICOM.

All were paid in full, even though the owners did not appear to earn anything close to the money Nguyen had reported.

The registrar’s written judgement described one woman as “deliberately evasive” about the source of her $130,000 down payment and said she maintained she had no idea Nguyen had manufactured a false employment letter claiming she made $45,000 when her actual income was $24,000.