The B.C. Securities Commission has found a mutual fund dealer, its principals and salespeople peddled high-risk investments — including a bowling alley development and an ostrich farm operation — unsuitable to conservative clients that included widows and elderly investors.

In a hearing decision made public today, a commission panel ruled that the principals and salespeople of Langley-based Canadian Global Investment Corp. violated the “know your client” and “suitability of investment” rules in selling “speculative, illiquid and highly risky” exempt securities to clients.

The firm’s principals — Danny Francis Bilinski and Robert Pierre Lamblin — also violated the “fair dealing” rule when they placed their own interests ahead of their clients in selling the securities.

The panel ruled that the firm and its principals failed to establish and apply proper compliance and supervision procedures. They also failed to comply with conflict of interest rules in selling the exempt securities. The panel said it would consider sanctions at a later date.

Almost 200 clients invested $20 million in the securities offered under the umbrella of the Canadian Global Financial Group Ltd. Bilinski and Lamblin sold more than 80% of the securities. Many of the clients have lost most of the money they invested while some still hold highly risky investments that are unsuitable for them.

Bilinski and Lamblin pitched and sold the securities to clients by telling them that they could minimize their income tax, receive monthly income and earn double-digit returns with minimal risk.

The panel found “particularly abusive” Bilinski’s and Lamblin’s conflicts of interest: through Canadian Global Financial, the pair owned equity interests in the issuers of the securities and participated in their management. The panel determined that the two “were driven to promote and sell their own product. They had a vested interest to not make any other investments available” to their clients.