Convicted fraudster Alan Kippax was two years old when he and his family left their native England for Canada.

Forty-six years later it's bye-bye to the Maple Leaf and back bacon and hello Union Jack and mushy peas.

Kippax was sentenced Wednesday to 5 1/2 months time served for his role orchestrating a "get rich quick" scheme that cheated investors out of millions of dollars. He will be deported to England within days.

Kippax, 48, was set to be sentenced last December but in a last-minute reversal told court he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea.

After retaining a new lawyer, Kippax abandoned the move.

Kippax headed Business In Motion (BIM), a company that purported to sell vacation travel packages and other products, but in reality sold nothing of value.

A number of local junior BIM recruits have already been sentenced for promoting the Ontario-based pyramid scheme at Steinbach-area information seminars in 2008 and 2009.

Court has heard participants in the scheme were enticed to make individual investments of between $3,200 and $3,600 and promised financial rewards for bringing in additional investors.

Seminar attendees were told if they met certain recruitment goals they could make as much as $100,000.

BIM was nothing more than a "money-moving scheme ... that preyed on the uneducated and trusting," said Crown attorney Peter Edgett.

Defence lawyer Tim Valgardson argued the BIM business model is similar to the one used for lingerie or candle parties.

"It was never their intention that anyone lose their money," Valgardson said. "Mr. Kippax thought he was operating within the law."

Cheated investors launched a class-action lawsuit and in February won a $6.5-million judgment against BIM and Kippax.

In 2010, Kippax was sentenced to three years in prison for an Ontario car crash that killed his cousin and seriously injured two people. After that conviction, immigration officials revoked Kippax's residency status.

In July 2012, Kippax was one of eight Brantford, Ont. residents arrested after police seized $20 million worth of marijuana.

dean.pritchard@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @deanatwpgsun