The courts appear to have heard calls from victims of white-collar crime demanding stiffer sentences against those found guilty of swindling investors.
In October 2009, Vincent Lacroix, a high-profile Quebec white-collar criminal found guilty of masterminding a $130-million fraud with 9,200 victims, was sentenced to 13 years in jail. A little over a year later, in February 2010, former Montreal financial adviser Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years in prison, after pleading guilty to two fraud charges related to a $50-million Ponzi scheme he orchestrated.
But an accounting professor who published a study on occupational fraud is far from convinced that stiff jail sentences on white-collar criminals will prove to be an effective deterrent.