Advertisements featuring Justin Trudeau and François Legault on Facebook convinced a 65-year-old man from Portneuf-sur-Mer, on the North Shore, to waste $50,000 on a fraudulent cryptocurrency platform.
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“What I find infuriating is why Facebook is letting cases like this drag on. It’s up to them to do a check-up […] to prevent fraud from occurring,” denounced Mario Simoneau, in an interview with our Bureau of Investigation.
Mario Simoneau, a retiree from the North Shore, says he is considering bankruptcy after being the victim of sophisticated fraud.
Courtesy
In November 2024, Mr. Simoneau claims to have seen advertisements on the popular social network where the two Quebec politicians affirmed that it was good to invest in cryptocurrency to get rich. However, he did not keep copies of these publications.
“Since it’s the heads of state, it seems to me that it must be true […]. Without that, I would never have boarded,” explained the Nord-Côtier, who admits to having limited knowledge of the web.
Mr. Simoneau then allegedly contacted a firm called GMZ Global, which was linked to the fraudulent advertising.
Screenshot of the GMZ Global site, which is no longer operational today.
taken from Web Archive
He allegedly agreed to pay a file opening fee of $300 to become a client of the firm. An agent then allegedly convinced him to invest $25,000 in cryptocurrencies. He then quickly generated huge gains on this investment, according to a platform to which GMZ gave him access. The returns would have been such that he would have been convinced to reinvest an additional $25,000.
An invoice received by Mario Simoneau in relation to his “investment”, when in reality it was all a fraud.
Courtesy
Some time later, Mr. Simoneau noted that his investments would have reached the value of 217,000 euros, or nearly $400,000 Canadian, according to his explanations. He then wanted to withdraw his money, which would have been impossible.
“After six months, I was unable to have anything. I have never been able to get a penny out of that,” he laments.
However, during a visit to his financial institution, an employee made him understand that this whole story could well be a fraud.
Still unable to get his marbles back, he claims to have filed a complaint with the police, who told him that his money was likely lost for good.
Mr. Simoneau is now considering bankruptcy. “It left me short. We were able to pay for our things [avant la fraude]“, he explains.
No longer in service
The Financial Markets Authority (AMF) issued a warning in March 2025 on its website to say that GMZ Global is not registered with it and is not authorized to solicit Quebec investors.
“The AMF has received two reports […]the first of which led to the establishment of this company on our warnings page,” Sylvain Théberge, spokesperson for the AMF, told our Bureau of Investigation.
It was impossible for us to contact the GMZ Global firm, one of its sites was no longer in service and its number was out of service.
