Former managers at iPro Realty, which Ontario’s real estate regulator shuttered after more than $10.5 million disappeared from trust accounts, say they know where some of the money went.
Two-and-a-half hours north of Toronto, on the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, a sign at the bottom of a long driveway that leads to a modern, three-storey home in Brechin, Ont. welcomes visitors to “Margaritaville.”
A portion of the funds misappropriated by the brokerage — founded by Rui Alves and Fedele Colucci — was used to pay for “significant renovations” to this waterfront property owned by Alves’s wife Joselle, according to a statement of claim filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice by former iPro branch managers Philip Kocev and Perry Staikopoulos.
A member of the Alves family dismissed the allegations as “conspiracy theories” in a statement to the Star.
A flurry of court actions filed against iPro and its co-founders in the wake of their company’s collapse suggests the total amount of money misappropriated from trust and investment accounts could be as high as $14 million.
Kocev and Staikopoulos are among a group of seven investors suing iPro’s cofounders and their investment company Hippo Holdings Corporation for more than $4 million in unpaid high-interest loans.
Hippo Holdings was founded by Alves and Colucci in 2005 as a vehicle to collect investments to expand the brokerage.
The former iPro managers and investors are also seeking an injunction to trace and freeze all accounts and assets tied to Alves and Colucci.
Their lawsuit alleges Rui’s wife, Joselle, and his sister Mariana Alves “had access to the books and records of iPro” and “have been unjustly enriched” through “disgraceful and dishonest” conduct of the brokerage’s cofounders.
The allegations have not been proven in court. As of Sept. 17, no statement of defence or notice of intent to defend against the claim has been filed.
In an email to the Star, Mariana Alves, a former office administrator at iPro, said she denies all allegations.
“The conspiracy theories in the claim are false,” Alves wrote. “The truth is that after three years of a declining market, cash flows dried up. The founders faced an impossible choice: close the company and harm thousands of agents and consumers and their investors, or risk everything to buy time hoping for a turnaround or a successful sale at full market value with the company’s goodwill intact. They ran out of time and now have lost everything they were trying to protect.”
Mariana Alves said several members of the Alves family are “still owed more than $1.5 million by Hippo Holdings and iPro Realty.”
In the past decade, iPro grew from a modest brokerage in Georgetown that employed fewer than 100 agents to one of Ontario’s largest realty companies, with more than 2,400 realtors in 17 offices across Greater Toronto.
Colucci, and Rui and Joselle Alves did not respond to reporters’ requests for comment.
Provincial property records obtained by the Star show Joselle purchased the waterfront property in Brechin, Ont., about 20 km southeast of Orillia, for $720,000 in 2018 and has since taken out two mortgages on the home; $1.2 million remains outstanding.
Last June, Rui and Joselle applied to the Township of Ramara for a building permit on the property, which backs onto a network of canals that lead to Lake Simcoe and the Trent Waterways System.
“The permit was for an extensive renovation and addition of an existing dwelling,” a spokesperson for the Township of Ramara told the Star by email. “A final inspection was performed on June 11, 2025.”
The township would not provide additional details about the property, which is also licensed with the municipality as a short-term rental.
The Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) is facing public backlash for its actions in the iPro Realty case, which allowed the company to continue operating and conducting more than $700 million in transactions for three months after it discovered the financial breach in May, which RECO said is the largest it has investigated.
The regulator told the Star its former registrar had struck a deal with Colucci and Alves, who served on RECO’s board of directors from 2019 to 2023. The deal allowed iPro’s founders to “voluntarily terminate” their realty registrations and escape charges and fines.
RECO was also publicly criticized within the industry for facilitating the mass, auto-transfer of iPro Realty employees to a new company called iCloud. Joselle Alves joined the new company as a broker.
On Sept. 11, RECO sought its own emergency injunction from Ontario’s Superior Court to freeze the assets of iPro and its principals, alleging the brokerage’s cofounders and seven of their companies orchestrated a “trust scheme,” which involved “the systemic diversion, removal and misuse” of trust money. The proceeding also requests a court order to allow RECO to trace the flow of trust funds that were “diverted” and return them to the trust accounts. If granted, Colucci and Alves would have to provide a statement describing their assets in Canada within a week of receiving the court order.
RECO’s court action does not mention Joselle or Mariana Alves.
Philip Kocev, who helped open iPro’s first two Toronto offices on the Danforth and the Junction, said he learned of “unspecified irregularities” regarding iPro’s trust accounts a month before RECO alerted the public. In a written statement to the Star, Kocev he said he hired a lawyer who contacted RECO on July 13 to obtain more details. RECO, he said, provided little information, noting only that “a confidential process was underway.”
Kocev incorporated a new company called Skybound Realty on July 23, 2025. Perry Staikopoulos and other former iPro staff have joined Kocev at Skybound.
The other plaintiffs in the court action Kocev and Staikopoulos filed in Toronto on Aug. 20 include: former iPro realtor Linda Kocev (Philip’s mother), Ted Staikopoulos (Perry’s brother), and Georgios Mitzithras, his wife Tereza Mitzithras, and their son Haralampophanourios “Rob” Mitzithras.
Mariana Alves told the Star she believes that consumers will be made whole and agents will recover “most or all of their commissions.”
In late August, RECO hired Dentons Canada to conduct a forensic audit of iPro. The Ontario Provincial Police are also investigating.
“After 44-years of (a) blemish-free career, Rui and Fedele have lost everything, forever,” Mariana Alves wrote in her statement to the Star.
“I know that beyond the loss of dignity and reputation, what haunts them most is the harm done to their families, their investors, and any agents still waiting to be repaid. I pray for everyone affected by this horrible business failure.”
