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A Canadian financier on Friday pleaded guilty to swindling nearly 50 million dollars (46 million US) from investors, said local media.
Bertram Earl Jones was accused of carrying out a pyramid scheme that bilked investors by using new financial injections to pay older clients, much like the multi-billion-dollar scheme orchestrated by disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff.
He entered a surprise guilty plea to two fraud charges in a Montreal courtroom on Friday morning, and is to be sentenced on February 15, said broadcaster CTV.
According to police and Quebec's securities regulator, Jones scammed at least 158 investors, mostly pensioners in Quebec, but also in other parts of Canada and in the United States.
The scam was uncovered after anxious customers contacted the regulator saying they were unable to reach Jones, who went on the lam for two weeks before his arrest in July.
Jones and his financial services firm have since been declared bankrupt and his wife has filed for divorce.
Madoff was jailed in June for 150 years for "extraordinarily evil" crimes in the largest investment fraud in US history.
