Armed with a mechanical engineering diploma in Turkey, he got here to McGill College on a scholarship in 1984 and earned his PhD. From 1992 to 2001, Kalaycioglu labored for the Canadian Area Company (CSA) within the house shuttle’s Canadarm2 program.
Then in what his associates and colleagues would all insist was utterly out of character, the achieved, well-respected house engineer acquired enmeshed in an elaborate monetary fraud that ended with an FBI sting.
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With no coaching or expertise, Kalaycioglu launched a finance firm in 2000 and have become concerned with a Florida-based funding firm and its financial institution in Grenada. Kalaycioglu would later be convicted of defrauding residents of Broward and Palm Beach counties in Florida on the basis of false representations, together with that he was one of only seven tradverters in the world approved and licensed by the U.S. Federal Reserve to commerce in bank instruments that yielded a very high rate of return.
He additionally instructed potential traders their deposits had been insured and homeowners of the financial institution in Grenada included Citibank and UBS – none of which was true.
“Dr. Kalaycioglu believed them to be true, however he didn’t conduct any due diligence to confirm the accuracy of his representations,” the tribunal famous. “Dr. Kalaycioglu seems to have been wilfully blind to the badges of fraud.”
A U.S. attraction court docket had a much less sympathetic evaluation, discovering Kalaycioglu “claimed to be engaged in funding buying and selling for the Canadian authorities and to have a mandate from the US Federal Reserve and World Financial institution to spend money on sure humanitarian applications. To assist his claimed connections, Kalaycioglu usually flashed his Canadian Area Company identification and an American Categorical card issued to him by the Canadian authorities.”
Federal prosecutors would allege that duped depositors misplaced $20 million.
After the FBI acquired wind of the fraud, they arrange a sting codenamed “Bermuda Quick.” Posing as corrupt managers of a mutual fund, they caught Kalaycioglu on tape providing to pay their undercover brokers $10 million in kickbacks in change for the fund shopping for $40 million in certificates of deposit from the financial institution in Grenada.
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In 2004, a Florida jury convicted him of 11 counts of wire fraud and certainly one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Throughout his 16 1/2 years behind bars, the tribunal heard the remorseful Kalaycioglu helped fellow inmates earn their highschool diplomas whereas attaining his MBA and two regulation levels.
In 2019, he was transferred right here and launched on full parole that expires in 2027. He’s resumed his robotics engineering profession as a analysis fellow at Toronto Metropolitan College and as director of house and robotics applications at Dr. Robotic Inc.
He additionally accomplished his masters at Osgoode Corridor Legislation College and articled at a global agency in Turkey. However with a prison document, he would must be discovered of “good character” to qualify to practise by the Legislation Society of Ontario.
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The regulation society mentioned Kalaycioglu ought to have to attend till his parole ends in three years. The tribunal disagreed, discovering he can practise now however should disclose his previous to employers or if self-employed to potential shoppers.
“Over 20 years in the past, Dr. Kalaycioglu made severe errors in judgment,” the panel concluded. “Dr. Kalaycioglu is now not the identical individual he was at the moment. He has accepted accountability for his wrongdoing and totally rehabilitated himself and set himself firmly on a path of redemption and public service.”
A spokesperson for the regulation society mentioned they received’t attraction the tribunal choice.
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