Supreme Court Nabs Driving Examiner for Fraud

A man advertised in Vancouver's Chinese-language newspapers and targeted new immigrants who wanted to obtain B.C. driver's licences without taking the required tests, the B.C. Supreme Court heard Monday.

David Foon-Wai Chiu, who had operated a Richmond driving school, pleaded guilty in July to bribing a former driving examiner of the Insurance Corp. of B.C. and defrauding the auto insurer.

Details of Chiu's driver's licence scheme were revealed in his sentencing hearing in a Vancouver court.

Crown prosecutor Kevin Marks described Chiu's operation as well organized, sophisticated and was motivated by greed.

Chiu, 52, advertised in Chinese-language newspapers and guaranteed clients they could get their B.C. driver's licences with "no English needed, guaranteed top marks, pass in one try," the court heard.

The scheme, with the help of a former ICBC driving examiner, assisted 54 people, who were mostly women and were recent immigrants from China, to obtain their licences without completing the required testing. They either avoided taking a knowledge test or a road test, or in some cases, both.

The people who obtained their driver's licences by fraud in this case were not charged, but ICBC revoked all their licences.

Marks said Monday that Chiu made up to $150,000 from the scheme in a two-and-a-half-year period while operating the now-defunct Dragon Driving School Canada Ltd.

Crispina Diaz, a former employee of the ICBC drivers services centre in Burnaby, has been sentenced to a conditional sentence of two years less a day for her part in the scam.

The Crown is asking the judge to send Chiu to prison for up to three years.