Kitchener – The court action against Pigeon King principal
Arlan Galbraith inched ahead in provincial court here with an adjournment to
Feb. 27 to deal with procedural matters.
It’s likely that lawyers for the prosecution and defence
will lay out a schedule for moving the case forward.
Galbraith is facing one charge of fraud and a number of
charges under the Bankruptcy Act, all relating to the collapse of his
pigeon-breeding business in Waterloo.
He persuaded thousands of people to invest in buying
breeding pairs of pigeons with a promise that Galbraith and, later, his Pigeon
King International inc., would buy back offspring at profitable prices.
Government officials in Iowa called it a Ponzi scheme,
meaning that it could only work as long as new investors were found to funnel
money to previous investors. Once the market for breeding pairs of pigeons
would be exhausted, the business would collapse.
Galbraith’s lawyer has obtained a court order sealing all of
the information that has so far been filed in court, including the information
the police have gathered to support the charges that have been laid.
