A B.C.-trained medical doctor turned U.S. felon, for his role in a massive U.S. stock fraud scheme largely orchestrated out of Vancouver, now faces the prospect of being permanently banned from Canada’s capital markets.
The B.C. Securities Commission applied to a tribunal panel June 23 to permanently ban prolific stock promoter Avtar Singh Dhillon from acting as a director or officer of any B.C. company that issues securities, as well as from trading or purchasing any securities or derivatives outside a registered dealer.
The application comes nearly five years after the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Dhillon and eight other B.C. residents for criminal securities fraud charges. It also comes 18 months after Dhillon was sentenced to four months in a federal prison after pleading guilty to willfully failing to disclose stock sales, aiding and abetting the sale of unregistered securities and conspiring to not disclose touting compensation tied to penny stock companies he controlled and promoted between 2013 and 2019.
Dhillon is a 64-year-old UBC-trained medical doctor who began promoting medical and biotechnology company stocks in the 1990s. He once claimed to have raised more than $1 billion from investors.
He also served as past chair of the Cannabis Canada Council and is a former member of the commission’s securities practice advisory committee.
In 2025, two years after being banned from any securities-related activity in the United States and ordered to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) US$10.4 million, Dhillon moved from his US$12 million, yacht-lined waterfront mansion in Long Beach, Calif. to the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas, for four months.
He avoided a much longer sentence after pleading guilty, co-operating with prosecutors against co-accomplices and displaying remorse. Prosecutors had sought an 18-month term, noting Dhillon lied twice under oath to the SEC.
Dhillon told a rags-to-riches type story to his sentencing judge, including how he was discriminated against as an immigrant child from Punjab growing up in B.C.
From prison, Dhillon was moved to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in El Paso, Texas, awaiting deportation until December 2025, according to court filings.
But it appears Dhillon has since been released by ICE. According to the commission’s application, Dhillon, a U.S. permanent resident since 2001, is residing in California as of June 23.
During his tenure as chair of Emerald Health Sciences, Avtar Singh Dhillon led public biotech and cannabis-sector operations.YouTube screenshot
Commission outlines case for permanent ban
Dhillon now has until Sept. 1 to respond to the commission's director of enforcement Doug Muir.
Muir stated in his application Dhillon showed “flagrant disregard for United States securities laws.”
“Your misconduct was deceitful and secretive and designed for your financial benefit. It harmed the capital markets.”
Muir said he “willfully” misled investors and deprived them of regulatory safeguards by concealing corporate structures, deceiving lawyers, using sham agreements and intermediaries and making “outlandish claims” such as potential gains of 4,900 per cent.
Muir noted the touting violations occurred through Dhillon’s Vancouver-headquartered private investment company Emerald Health Sciences Inc., where he was CEO and a significant shareholder.
Emerald Health Sciences controlled subsidiary life sciences public company headquartered in San Diego called Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals, which Dhillon clandestinely promoted to raise $32.5 million while co-directing it with his longtime business associate and Vancouver lawyer Jim Heppell. He was not implicated in the scheme but reached a $517,000 settlement on behalf of the company without admitting or denying wrongdoing.
Should Dhillon contest the application he will do so on better footing than at least four other legal proceedings he dealt with while incarcerated.
Multiple court battles follow securities conviction
In February 2025, Farm Credit Canada applied to the B.C. Supreme Court to declare two mortgages for eight parcels of farmland in Richmond belonging to Dhillon and his spouse Diljit Kaur Bains in default.
In August 2025 Dhillon had to apply, without counsel representation, for an extension to respond to Farm Credit Canada because he said he was not permitted to retain legal documents upon being transferred from prison to ICE’s facility, described online as having tented dorm-style sleeping arrangements. According to the New York Times, the ICE facility “is facing growing scrutiny over its living conditions.”
In October 2025, a judge ordered Dhillon and Bains to pay back more than $3.3 million for loans associated with the properties and declared the mortgages in default. Last month, Farm Credit Canada petitioned the court to sell six parcels of property.
Dhillon has also been responding to a lawsuit related to Skye Bioscience Inc., a company he chaired until 2019. Dhillon’s nephew Punit Dhillon took over leadership of the company with Dhillon maintaining a “board observer agreement” through Emerald Health Sciences until his indictment.
Skye merged with Emerald Health Sciences in November 2022 and was listed on the Nasdaq Global Market exchange in April 2024. Its shares traded at about US$16 each on claims that it developed eye drops and a drug for obesity.
Now trading at 58 cents US per share, the company is faced with two civil lawsuits alleging it misled investors, which the company denies.
Dhillon has been asked to field questions from purported whistleblower and former Skye vice-president of business operations Wendy Cunning, who alleged the company operated a pump-and-dump and then retaliated against her when she raised concerns.
Dhillon pleaded the Fifth Amendment after only having access to three one-hour video calls per week at the detention centre, according to his court submissions.
Dhillon also pleaded the Fifth Amendment to SEC investigators after becoming subject to the intensive, widespread investigation from both the SEC and Federal Bureau of Investigation against nearly two dozen British Columbians and others who concealed trades through deceptive practices, illegal nominees, offshore shell companies and Swiss trading platforms.
Dhillon testified he worked closely with Lake Country’s Paul Sexton, Vancouver’s Mike Veldhuis—who face criminal fraud charges—as well as another former prominent Vancouver stock promoter David Sidoo, who faces civil charges of fraud in the offer or sale of securities, fraud in the purchase or sale of securities and unregistered offerings of securities.
Sidoo’s charges have been stayed while alleged co-accomplices complete parallel criminal trials.
The SEC stated Dhillon chaired the boards of four of the more than 100 public companies whose stocks were fraudulently bought and sold.
Dhillon’s B.C. business dealings draw further scrutiny
Dhillon has also directed numerous public companies in B.C., where he has no record of enforcement from the B.C. Securities Commission. His cousin Kris Kallu, who is suing Dhillon and Emerald Health Sciences, has raised questions about the regulator’s oversight while alleging he was misled and undercompensated during his time as a founding cultivator for the company’s medical cannabis operations in Richmond.
Kallu told BIV he has asked the commission to have a second look at Emerald Health Sciences after claiming one investigator was “unfair, dismissive and bias.”
The commission says it does not speak publicly about investigations.
One of Dhillon’s B.C. ventures included a high-profile Richmond-based medical cannabis firm called Emerald Health Therapeutics, controlled by Emerald Health Sciences and is now delisted from trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange.
Emerald Health Sciences is now in the process of filing for bankruptcy through MNP LLP and claims to only have US$176,906 in Skye shares and US$64,489 in cash. The company reports owing $4.3 million to unsecured creditors.
Emerald Health Sciences denies defrauding Kallu and has filed a claim against co-founder Yadvinder Kallu. He is the estranged brother of Kris Kallu and was previously convicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
After Kris Kallu left the company around 2017, police raided a farm property owned by his estranged parents in 2020. Authorities alleged the property was being used for an illegal cannabis grow operation and claimed it had connections to organized crime, including the Hells Angels.
