In a case that highlights Canada’s struggle to quash financial crime, a prominent immigration consultant and political donor in Vancouver’s wealthy Chinese community has been found to have committed fraud, the British Columbia Securities Commission announced on Wednesday.

A commission panel ruled that the consultant, Paul Se Hui Oei, a flamboyant businessman with a fondness for luxury cars, had swindled nearly $4 million dollars from investors, including Chinese immigrants and citizens of China who were led to believe that their investment would allow them to secure permanent residency status in Canada.

Bragging of his ties to prominent Canadian politicians and his financial success, Mr. Oei leveraged his connections in the Chinese community to raise money for a recycling start-up. But Mr. Oei secretly transferred part of the money, more than 5 million Canadian dollars, that investors had intended to fund the project into companies under his control, and he issued shares with no assets to the investors, the panel found.

Mr. Oei and his companies “misappropriated these funds and used them for their own purposes and not as the investors were told they would be used,” the panel stated. Mr. Oei declined to comment.