A Calgary man is facing serious criminal charges after police say he ran a Ponzi scheme that pulled in more than $164 million from over 1,000 investors, all while having no formal background in finance whatsoever. His name is Craig Michael Thompson, and he’s 49.
The RCMP’s Federal Policing Northwest Region Integrated Market Enforcement Team arrested Thompson on July 31, 2026. He’s been charged with two counts of fraud and one count of laundering proceeds of crime.
How the Scheme Worked
Police say that between March 2020 and April 2024, Thompson ran the operation through his company, Black Box Management Corp. He presented himself as a one-man investment firm, taking money from investors who believed he’d use it for day trading in the stock market.
Every week, investors got an email update showing how their accounts were doing. The updates always looked good, steady growth, solid performance, the kind of thing that keeps people from asking too many questions. Except, according to investigators, the numbers in those emails were made up. Some of the content in the updates was reportedly plagiarized from various sources found online.
Out of the roughly $164 million that came in, police allege Thompson moved more than $163 million out to other accounts, including his own personal trading account and an investment in a company based in the United States. That’s almost the entire amount, essentially none of the money stayed where investors thought it was.
Thompson was also reportedly connected to three other investment and invoice-factoring businesses, Intelsense Investment Corp., Invader Management Ltd., and Attebyte Investment Corp.
This Isn’t His First Run-In With Regulators
Here’s the part that’s honestly kind of stunning. This isn’t the first time Thompson has faced consequences for this exact scheme. Back in August 2025, the Alberta Securities Commission sanctioned Thompson along with two of his companies after he signed a Statement of Agreed Facts admitting to raising $150 million from more than 1,000 investors in Alberta and the United States, all under the same day-trading pitch.
As part of that regulatory case, Thompson admitted to two offenses under the Alberta Securities Act, acting as a dealer without being registered, and committing fraud against investors. He was ordered to pay $8.1 million in disgorgement, a $750,000 administrative penalty, and $14,000 in costs, and he was permanently banned from trading securities in the province.
The regulator’s own 31-page decision described the operation as among the largest Ponzi schemes in Alberta’s history. And here’s the detail that really stands out: the ASC found that Thompson had no post-secondary education and no actual experience in finance, investing, or trading. He was managing $150 million of other people’s money anyway.
The Human Cost
One investor, according to the ASC’s findings, lost more than $25 million, described as their entire life savings and inheritance. That’s not a rounding error in someone’s portfolio, that’s a person’s whole financial future wiped out.
The commission’s director of enforcement, Cynthia Campbell, called it “a classic Ponzi scheme, dressed up as a modern trading success story.” That phrase kind of sums up how these operations tend to work, a good pitch and some fake numbers can go a long way before anyone notices something’s wrong.
Where Things Stand Now
Thompson is scheduled to appear in court in Calgary. None of the criminal allegations have been proven, and he’s presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise. The RCMP is asking anyone who believes they were a victim of fraud connected to this investigation to reach out directly through the email address listed in their public announcement.
Given how the earlier regulatory case unfolded, and how much money is now tied up in a criminal investigation on top of that, it seems unlikely most investors will see their full losses recovered, even if a conviction eventually comes through.