<div><p>A Canadian financier on Friday pleaded guilty to swindling nearly 50 million dollars (46 million US) from investors, said local media.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Jones and his financial services firm have since been declared bankrupt and his wife has filed for divorce.</p><p>Madoff was jailed in June for 150 years for "extraordinarily evil" crimes in the largest investment fraud in US history.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66988118&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

Copyright 2010  <a href="http://www.afp.com/english/links/?pid=copyright">AFP American Edition</a></div></div>