In the last eight months of its operations, iPro Realty’s cofounders Rui Alves and Fedele Colucci diverted more than $30 million in trust money to accounts that paid themselves, family members, investors and related companies, according to a preliminary review of the company’s books by a forensic accountant.
The review is among hundreds of pages of affidavits and exhibits filed by the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) in Superior Court on Friday.
The real estate regulator is seeking an emergency injunction to freeze the accounts and assets of iPro Realty, its cofounders and six other related companies. Justice William Black is expected to rule on the order during a virtual hearing on Monday at noon.
“My preliminary analysis indicates that trust funds appear to have been used to make payments to Alves and Colucci and related parties,” forensic accountant Alessandra Leggio Di Matteo wrote in an affidavit for the court. Di Matteo, a certified anti-money laundering and forensic investigator at MNP, was hired by Dentons Canada to audit iPro’s financial breach and the regulator’s response to it.
The massive court file also includes details of the deal the regulator signed with Colucci and Alves on Aug. 8 to avoid charges and fines after it discovered a $10.5-million shortfall in the brokerage’s trust accounts in May.
In a statement issued last week, RECO said Alves, Colucci and seven of their companies orchestrated a “trust scheme” that involved “the systemic diversion, removal, and misuse of consumer deposit and agent commissions held in trust on their behalf.”
RECO’s application to the court also seeks to trace the flow of trust funds that were “diverted” and “return them to the trust accounts from which they were taken.”
The allegations have not been proven in court.
RECO’s investigation of iPro Realty determined in May that co-founders Rui Alves, a former RECO board member, and Fedele Colucci “illegally disbursed” $10.5 million from the brokerage’s consumer deposit and commission trust accounts. Three months later, RECO facilitated the transfer of 2,400 iPro employees in 17 offices across Greater Toronto to iCloud Realty and struck a deal with co-founders that allowed both men to escape charges and fines. RECO has told the Star that the financial breach is the largest its office has ever investigated.
Alves and Colucci did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the injunction, and have not responded to the Star’s previous attempts to contact them.
The accountant’s “limited review” of iPro’s transactions from Jan. 1 to Aug. 22, 2025 is based on “bank statements, cheques, deposit slips, and limited supporting documents.”
The investigator noted that she would like to review documents from the period Jan. 1, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2025 to “allow for a more complete analysis of the Trust Scheme.”
“A complete tracing of the trust funds cannot be completed until and unless further and full disclosure of banking documentation from (Colucci, Alves and iPro Realty) is provided and analyzed.”
