In 2015, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) issued a formal “warning” against the organizer of the controversial influencer trip to Cancún, James William Awad, who at the time had a different first name.
The Laval resident had at the time solicited investors on Facebook without holding a license or having the skills to do such an activity. The AMF court ordered him to cease the activities of his firm KJRVS Inc., in addition to paying fines.
The 28-year-old man at the time was called Kevin Awad. He made an official request to change his first name in 2017, and a judge approved his new identity in June 2019: James William.
It is under this new name that he has launched several companies in recent years, including 111 Private Club. Mr. Awad has been in great embarrassment for several days because of a trip that this firm organized for young Quebec revelers, some of whom have adopted behaviors considered dangerous and rude in a Sunwing flight between Montreal and Cancún.
Several vacationers, including former reality TV participants Double occupation and The island of love, were filmed drinking vodka bottles, vaping and dancing without a mask on the flight chartered by Mr. Awad on December 30. The frightened flight attendants would have taken refuge at the back of the plane.
Transport Canada has launched an investigation into the incident, which was decried by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and is circulating in the media around the world. The festivities organized by Mr. Awad took place in Tulum, not far from Cancún.
A “technological genius”?
Since the warning sent by the AMF in 2015, Mr. Awad has multiplied the creation of companies of all kinds. According to the Business Register, he launched a gym, a hairdressing salon, a telecommunications company and a pizzeria, among others.
One of its companies, called TripleOne, boasts on its website that it is the “world’s first decentralized company” and says it offers a concept similar to cryptocurrencies.
Mr. Awad also works as a musician under the nickname “Senior”, and has 1 million subscribers on the social network Instagram. The man has been the subject of various infomercials in online media, where he has been described as a “technological genius” since the age of 12.
According to a sponsored article posted on the Ocean Drive website, he created his first video game at the age of 12 and launched an online store at 14 that sold more than 200,000 products.
The Autorité des marchés financiers investigator who looked into the affairs of KJRVS Inc. describes Mr. Awad in a slightly less flattering light.
“Kevin Awad seems to have a certain misunderstanding of what he is accused of,” reads a judgment rendered in 2015 by the AMF’s decision and review office.
Official name change
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Solidarity, which oversees the Director of Civil Status, confirmed to Press that a judge of the judicial district of Laval authorized the change of name from “Kevin” to “James William” in June 2019.
Mr. Awad did not respond to interview requests sent by Press on different platforms.
After minimizing on Twitter the seriousness of the acts committed in the Sunwing flight, James William Amad subsequently indicated that he took this situation “very seriously”.
With the collaboration of Hugo Joncas, Press