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by Mike Caswell

Chester Alvarez, one of those charged in the United States for a Colombian boiler room run by Vancouver's Frank Biller, has avoided any new jail time for the scheme, with a judge sentencing him to the 14 months he already spent in prison. Prosecutors said that Mr. Alvarez, 42, worked as an "opener" in the boiler room as it defrauded investors. The operation aggressively promoted stocks while hidden shareholders unloaded millions of shares.

Mr. Alvarez's sentence is set out in a judgment filed on Oct. 9, 2025, in federal court in New York. In addition to the time already served, the judge ordered Mr. Alvarez to serve three years of supervised release. He is also subject to a $2.4-million forfeiture order. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The sentence is a victory for Mr. Alvarez, who had asked that the judge not send him back to prison. He said that his part in the boiler room was minimal and only arose when Mr. Biller hired him after a night of heavy drinking. Mr. Alvarez claimed that his job was to read scripts provided by Mr. Biller and to make trades as directed by Mr. Biller. Mr. Alvarez explained that he left the operation after he realized that it was a boiler room (which occurred "over a couple of years").

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