Former Vancouver Canucks draft choice and NHL prospect Prab Rai has been accused of multi-million dollar fraud by an Indo-Canadian realtor who said he lent Rai the money for real-estate and Tim Hortons franchise among other things. The evidence in the case had led a BC judge to freeze Rai’s assets in a lawsuit that claims more than $2.8 million fraud. Realtor Harpreet Singh Khela claims Rai, a fifth-round pick in the 2008 NHL draft, held himself out to be a successful and wealthy business person, purporting to have important connections with prominent local and international business people and retired hockey players

SURREY – Former Vancouver Canucks draft choice and NHL prospect Prab Rai has been accused of multi-million dollar fraud by an Indo-Canadian realtor who said he lent Rai the money for real-estate and Tim Hortons franchise among other things.

The evidence in the case had led a BC judge to freeze Rai’s assets in a lawsuit that claims more than $2.8 million fraud.

Realtor Harpreet Singh Khela claims Rai, a fifth-round pick in the 2008 NHL draft, held himself out to be a successful and wealthy business person, purporting to have important connections with prominent local and international business people and retired hockey players, reported Postmedia.

Khela says that Rai provided to him phoney emails, financial statements, agreements and documents from those prominent business people and retired professional hockey players in order to fraudulently induce him to transfer more than $2.8 million for real estate developments and other investments.

The alleged schemes included a San Diego development property, a Tim Hortons franchise, and the purchase of the Sutton Hotel in Vancouver. 

Another alleged scheme involved Rai telling Khela that a prominent former Canuck player was interested in purchasing commercial real estate located in Alberta that Khela held shares in.

Khela claims that starting in 2017 and continuing to about October 2020, Rai told him that they had earned significant profits from their purported ventures and then concealed the fraud by telling him a false story that the profits had been frozen by the U.S. government and were unavailable, reported Postmedia.

He claimed that in October 2020, Khela was told that Rai had been kidnapped on his way to the airport, beaten and robbed of his hard drive, which contained all of his bank account information, and that all of his money was gone.

Following the “fantastical’” kidnapping story, Khela says he began to investigate his business dealings with Rai and discovered the alleged fraud.

“Prab Rai’s stories to Khela about the profits earned by their business ventures were a lie. There are no profits, and there were no IRS investigations or frozen accounts,” says the lawsuit.

“Prab Rai told these false stories for the purpose of preventing Khela from commencing legal proceedings to trace and recover the funds that he advanced to Prab Rai.”

Rai, a junior hockey star out of Surrey, signed a contract with the Canucks in 2010, but his hockey career was sidelined due to injuries he suffered in a car accident, according to media reports.

In his response filed in court, Rai, a junior hockey star out of Surrey who signed a contract with the Canucks in 2010, but his hockey career was sidelined due to injuries he suffered in a car accident, said that over the course of many years, Khela had actively attempted to ingratiate himself with Rai and involve, or associate himself with, Rai’s legitimate business pursuits, reported Postmedia.

But Rai’s lawyers later withdrew from the case because Rai could not afford to pay the $80,000 owed to the lawyers. 

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick in her ruling noted that the only substantive assets of Rai are two Lamborghini luxury vehicles with a combined value of about $1.2 million.

She concluded that the legal test had been made to order the freezing of the assets and found there was a real risk of dissipation of those assets. The judge ordered that Rai provide a list of his assets and not dispose of them.

Khela has also named several of Rai’s family members, including his brother, who is a former RCMP officer, as defendants. But they have filed documents denying they were involved in any fraudulent activity.

A 15-day trial is scheduled to begin in January 2024.