Dead Hells Angel with history of bad credit got mortgage from charitable foundation
Credit to Author: Kim Bolan| Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 10:00:03 +0000
When Hardside Hells Angel Suminder “Ali” Grewal wanted to buy some investment property in Maple Ridge last year, he turned to a mortgage broker to get financing.
Despite having several court cases filed against him for nonpayment of credit cards, building supplies and work on his house, Grewal was able to secure an $860,000 mortgage for his company A. Grewal Holdings Ltd.
That allowed him to buy two properties on St. Anne Avenue then assessed at $1,076,900.
The lenders? Four individual investors and a registered charity.
And within months Grewal had defaulted on the loan, forcing the investors to file a lawsuit to get their money back.
Grewal was shot to death in South Surrey Aug. 2 as he sat in a Starbucks drive-through line in his 2014 Dodge Viper.
Two young men from Edmonton, Calvin Junior Powery-Hooker, 20, and Nathan James De Jong, 21, were arrested near the scene and have been charged with first-degree murder.
RCMP and IHIT investigate after Suminder ‘Ali’ Grewal was shot dead on Aug. 2 at the Southpoint Exchange mall in South Surrey.
Court documents obtained by Postmedia News show that the Lohn Foundation and investors Jack Kowarsky, a Lohn Foundation director; Myron Slobogean; Ai Nagano; and Anne Coulombe provided the financing for Grewal to purchase 22352 and 22362 St. Anne Ave.
Not only did Grewal use the two Maple Ridge properties as security, he also used his palatial South Surrey house, assessed at more than $2.9 million.
The interest on the loan was eight per cent, with periodic interest-only payments of $5,733.33, the documents say.
But by last fall, cheques that Grewal sent his investors were bouncing and, in January 2019, they filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court asking for the mortgage to be repaid in full with interest.
Lawyer Richard Ritson, who filed the lawsuit, said none of the investors knew Grewal was a Hells Angel when the mortgage deal was struck in January 2018.
“The lender was not aware of any of that background at the time that that mortgage was issued. That is all that I would want to say without discussing it with the lender,” said Ritson, who is also a director of the Lohn Foundation according to federal records.
Asked how the lenders were approached for the loan, Ritson said: “I don’t know the answer to that other than to say that pretty much all loans come through mortgage brokers and are presented to lenders as a possible deal. “
He then referred questions to Kowarsky, “because he is the main person behind the lender.”
Kowarsky, a lawyer and philanthropist who has donated to numerous B.C. charities over the years, did not return several messages left by Postmedia News.
Members of the Hardside chapter of the Hells Angels, left to right: the late Chad Wilson (formerly of the Haney chapter), the late Suminder “Ali” Grewal (formerly of the Haney chapter) and Jaimie Yochlowitz (formerly of the Vancouver chapter).
Slobogean, one of the other investors, said he only learned that Grewal was a Hells Angel after he defaulted on the loan.
“I did not know prior to that that he was, because Mr. Ritson told me that is something perhaps private investors should be aware of … in the future,” Slobogean said.
He confirmed that the loan opportunity “came through a mortgage broker.”
He declined to name the broker, but said he would pass along a message. No one called back.
“I don’t know where the mortgage application originally commenced. I don’t know how it went to … the people that I dealt with on this particular investment. They get mortgage applications from a variety of other brokers throughout the Lower Mainland so I don’t know exactly,” he said.
“They do have what I would say is considerable business integrity. It is not all about just making the dollar at the expense of everything or anything else. They don’t operate that way and I don’t operate that way.”
Slobogean said he never met Grewal. The investors got their money back in May 2019, according to land title records.
Murdered Hells Angel Suminder “Ali” Grewal, 43, lived in this South Surrey house assessed at $2.9 million.
Grewal set up A. Grewal Holdings in July 2016. He was listed as the only director at the time. In March 2017, his wife Nardeep “Rimpy” Grewal, a realtor, was added as a director.
Then in April 2019, Grewal ceased to be a director of the company that bore his name. A second realtor named Balpreet Bal replaced Grewal as a director. Bal did not respond to requests for comment.
On Aug. 2, just hours after Grewal was gunned down, a request was submitted to the B.C. corporate registry to change the name of the company from A. Grewal Holdings to 1083814 BC Ltd., erasing any public link to the company founder.
The two Maple Ridge properties purchased by Grewal have gone up in value by more than $675,000 in the 18 months since he bought them. One is a vacant lot and the other is an older home that the sales agent said could be rented for $1,100 a month.
The City of Maple Ridge said there is no current application on file to develop the property.
The first mortgage appears to have been paid off by a new loan from MortEq Lending Corp., according to land title records.
MortEq president Parm Purewall said in an email that he couldn’t comment “due to both federal privacy legislation and provincial regulatory policies.”
“We are unable to provide any information regarding any applications with our firm,” he said.
Grewal, a one-time member of the Haney Hells Angels, joined the Surrey-based Hardside chapter when it opened in 2017. He lists his job on land title records as “manager.”
He had a long history of nonpayment of bills, forcing creditors to register liens on his seven-bedroom house in Surrey, according to court records.
In September 2016, CIBC filed a suit against Grewal alleging he had not paid credit card and line of credit debt totalling about $22,000. And several small claims suits were also filed against Grewal for unpaid bills totalling about $40,000 for building supplies, flooring and roofing installation.
blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop
CLICK HERE to report a typo.
Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.