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When the scope of the scam came to light, victims and those familiar with how Williams operated wanted to know if the RCMP would be investigating.

The startling answer: no.

Investors were stunned, but the lack of a police investigation was not unique.

In the past decade, police investigations and criminal prosecution of investment fraud in British Columbia have been rare, an examination by Postmedia has found.

Among the cases that have resulted in significant prosecution were a six-year jail sentence in 2016 for notary Rashida Samji for carrying out a Ponzi scheme where investors lost about $11 million and a nine-year sentence for fraudster Ian Thow in 2010 for taking $6 million from his clients in investments that did not exist.

But as few as six other police-investigated cases have landed fraudsters in jail in the past decade, according to a review of court records and news files.

Even when fraudsters have been singled out by the B.C. Securities Commission as having carried out the most egregious violations of the Securities Act, jail sentences are unlikely.

Among more than 80 fraudsters handed administrative penalties of more than $100,000 or permanently banned from B.C.’s capital markets in the past decade by the securities regulator, only half a dozen have served jail time in British Columbia, according to an analysis of securities commission and court records.