Ex-pastor faces fraud charges

By Frank Stirk

THE FACT that a former member is charged with fraud - and allegedly has connections with a supporter of terrorism - seems to have caused barely a ripple among the current members of Peace Portal Alliance Church.

That is probably because Brian Anderson severed his ties with the Surrey church about four or five years ago.

Anderson stands accused of scamming $14 million in two allegedly phony investment schemes; and he was recently linked to an American charged with financing terrorist activities.

"Brian and his family did attend here for a number of years - I'm not sure exactly how many - and then they withdrew of their own accord," says Peace Portal senior executive pastor Brian Thom. "I've only been here for a few years, and I haven't seen Brian or his family around the church at all in my time here."

The ties were once much closer. In October 1976, Brian Anderson's late father, David T. Anderson, began serving as the church's first pastor, when it was known as Crescent Park Community Church. Brian Anderson is himself ordained - and, as the National Post reported, once pastored an Alliance church in Brandon, Manitoba.

"He did very well as a pastor at first. The church was growing under him," Dick Driedger, a longtime friend and former executive pastor at Peace Portal, told the Post.

He described Anderson as "very energetic" and an excellent communicator and fundraiser.

But then something "overtook him," Driedger remembers. "We had to stop him. He wanted to build a much bigger church than [the congregation was] capable of handling."

During the 1980s, after returning to B.C. and joining Peace Portal, Anderson worked in the development office at Trinity Western University.

Just over a year ago, the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) filed a notice of hearing accusing Anderson of running two investment schemes - Frontier Assets and The Alpha Program - between January 2000 and November 2004 into which investors paid approximately $14 million. Over $530,000 of that amount came from B.C. residents.

Anderson is charged under the Securities Act with two counts each of fraud, misrepresentation, failure to register as a securities trader and distributing securities without filing a prospectus with the commission.

A website set up by some of Anderson's alleged victims accuses him of "using Christianity and hiding behind the cross . . . to bilk hundreds of Canadian and United States citizens out of tens of millions of dollars."

Thom does not believe any Peace Portal members were caught up in these schemes.

The three-member panel which heard the case February 26 is expected to hand down its ruling May 31.

If he is found guilty on all counts, Anderson could face up to $10 million in fines and a lifetime ban on participating in the capital markets.

Neither Anderson nor his lawyer were at the hearing. On March 12, Anderson was arrested in Madrid by Spanish police and the FBI, following an investigation into his alleged ties to New York businessman Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari.

Alishtari, who pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan courtroom last month to charges including terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering, is said to be the principal behind The Alpha Program.

Anderson was arrested on an FBI complaint of fraud involving Frontier Assets - which the document calls a "classic ponzi, or pyramid, scheme" - that he and his daughter, Bonnie Dick, allegedly ran in the United States between 2001 and 2003, the Toronto Star and Newsweek reported.

He has not been charged with any terrorism-related offences.

BCSC spokesman Andrew Poon insists none of this has any bearing on Anderson's hearing before the commission and should not impede the panel from rendering its decision. "It's not really swayed by any other external processes. He does not have to be here," he says.

Thom is not sure if any of this needs to be addressed from the pulpit. "Sometimes I feel like when you do it in the heat of something happening, you're drawing extra attention to that event," he says. "Is that really what you want to do in your teaching or not? So we'll just have to see where that does go."

But even though Peace Portal appears to have emerged unscathed - at least financially - many other congregations in B.C. have been hit hard over the years by con artists.

John Haycock, an ordained Presbyterian and chaplain at MSA Hospital in Abbotsford, cautions churchgoers to be very wary of someone trying to pitch a money-making scheme that seems too good to be true.

"Approach your securities commission," he advises. "'Tell us about this. Educate us on this. How do we stop this? What should we be on the lookout for?' For it's happening all over the place."

April 2007