What’s New: In Brief (November 20, 2009)

A man who obtained two drivers licenses under different aliases has been handed a six-month jail sentence.
When applying for a license to drive in British Columbia in September 2004, Christopher Richard Alblas presented an Alberta driver’s license.
After a series of checks and reviews, the customer service representative contacted her Alberta counterpart and determined the licence provided by Alblas was a fake, according to the ICBC.
ICBC’s Special Investigations Unit took over and tracked Alblas through several aliases to learn his real identity.
He was charged in 2006 with two counts of impersonation, one count of fraud and one of uttering a forged document for using a fake identity to file a claim with ICBC.
At trial he pleaded guilty to fraud and uttering a forged document, and was sentenced in September of this year to six months in jail and ordered to repay ICBC $5,091 for the claim paid out.

Claude Plouffe and the firm Le Garant Consultant inc., were ordered to pay fines totalling Cdn$21,000 for illegal damage insurance practices by the Court of Quebec.
Plouffe pleaded guilty to one charge brought against him in December 2006 by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) for illegally pursuing activities as a damage insurance broker and was fined $7,000, the AMF reported.
This is equivalent approximately to the funds misappropriated by Claude Plouffe at the expense of a consumer to whom he illegally sold a liability insurance policy, according to AMF.
Le Garant Consultant inc. also pleaded guilty to one charge for illegally pursuing activities as a damage insurance firm and was fined $14,000, which is seven times the minimum fine stipulated under An Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services, according to the AMF.