Now, 75-year-old Barry Stevens has to keep working to make ends meet. Stevens says that when he invested $400,000 with Fortress Real Developments in 2012, his entire retirement savings, it all seemed legitimate. “The big lure was the eight and a half percent interest rate,” Stevens says. “They presented me with a number of potential high-rise buildings in the Toronto and Calgary area that I could invest in with the promise that after three years I could get my money back.” The investment involved the development of large apartment buildings and skyscrapers through a mortgage syndicated fund, where two or more people invest in a single mortgage on a property. Stevens was happy with his decision at first and says one of the funds returned $20,000. “My wife and I went to claim one of the investments that, as far as we were concerned, had been completed, we were told yes it should be available to you by mid-November,” says Stevens. “Then when I called to go pick it up, they said, ‘Oh, didn’t you get our letter saying everything was broken and the money wasn’t available?’ … of the $400,000 I had there, I got $12,000 back one year.” Stevens says he lost everything. In June, Fortress Real Development founders Jawad Rathore, of Markham, Ont., and Vince Petrozza, of Richmond Hill, Ont., were charged with fraud and conspiracy under the criminal code. RCMP say the charges come after an investigation, dubbed Project Dynasty, began in 2016 when police received complaints about the company’s business operations. “Specifically, allegations were received that the company was fraudulently receiving investments in a syndicated mortgage investment scheme,” the RCMP said in a statement. “It is alleged that the founders of Fortress Real Developments engaged in fraud by orchestrating an ongoing scheme in which they did not disclose the various risks to brokers and investors.” The charges have not been proven in court. The company denies the claims on its website. Fortress Real Developments was the developer behind a $180 million, 388-unit high-rise project in Winnipeg that has been scrapped. With his retirement now over, Stevens must continue to work, and he says he will have to do so for the rest of his life. Last year, he was a part-time Uber driver until his vehicle was involved in an accident, which proved too expensive to repair. He currently works as a security guard in downtown Ottawa. “I struggle to get up as early as the morning five days a week, and I’m not getting any younger, but I don’t see any other way for us to be able to keep a roof over our heads,” he says, adding that for now all he wants is to see a criminal conviction. “We hope that justice will be served to several hundred or thousands of people who were affected in a similar way to me.”
