B.C. real estate agent handed second suspension tied to alleged investment fraud scheme

A photo of Afsaneh Zarshenas, also known as Afsi Dashti, posted by Remax Sabre on social media last year to celebrate 20 years with the brokerage (photo: Instagram).

A British Columbia real estate licensee is facing a fresh suspension after failing to co-operate with a provincial regulator’s investigation into allegations she defrauded investors, the latest disciplinary action against her in a tangled case that’s been unfolding for years.

The BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) said Wednesday that it has issued a six-month licence suspension to Afsaneh Zarshenas, also known as Afsi Dashti, for failing to provide information required by investigators probing her alleged involvement in a possible investment scheme.

Zarshenas’ licence is currently suspended as a result of not complying with a 2025 consent order, and the suspension will remain until she pays the required $50,000 discipline penalty. The new six-month suspension will take effect immediately after the current suspension order is lifted.

Zarshenas, a sales rep with Remax Sabre Realty Group of Port Coquitlam during the period at issue, must also pay $9,235.28 in enforcement expenses within 60 days. She has 30 days to appeal the decision to the Financial Services Tribunal.

Ties to unregistered mortgage broker

Zarshenas was one of 23 people facing discipline proceedings as a result of working with Jay Kanth Chaudhary, who became the subject of a BCFSA investigation in 2019 for processing $500 million worth of loans over a decade as an unregistered mortgage broker.

According to a BCFSA fact sheet, real estate licensees involved with Chaudhary are alleged to have “referred their clients to his noncompliant services and/or to have used his services in their own mortgage applications and misrepresented their income and savings information.”  

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans 

The investigation into Zarshenas stems from five complaints received by BCFSA from members of the public who said they had loaned money to Zarshenas. According to BCFSA investigator testimony, the complainants said they loaned money to Zarshenas under the belief it would be used to help other individuals buy real estate, and that they would receive interest payments in return.

 The amounts loaned varied but reached into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to BCFSA documents.

A slow response to investigation

BCFSA sent Zarshenas an investigation letter on April 4, 2025, requesting a detailed statement and a substantial package of documents, including the names and contact information of all investors, copies of financial contracts and promissory notes, all communications with investors, real estate deal files, financial statements, a full account of how investor funds were spent and evidence that she had promptly notified the superintendent of her March 2025 bankruptcy filing. 

Zarshenas was given until April 18, 2025 to respond. She did not.

On May 14, 2025, Zarshenas responded through legal counsel, providing a statement and some documents. 

The statement focused on four individuals who had brought civil claims against her, outlining her relationship with them and describing the funds as personal loans, and provided general information about her financial difficulties and bankruptcy. 

BCFSA wrote back the same day, telling Zarshenas the response was insufficient and that she remained in contravention of her obligations under the Real Estate Services Act and Real Estate Services Rules.

At the hearing

At the sanctions hearings in September and November 2025, senior hearing officer Andrew Pendray acknowledged that Zarshenas’ co-operation, while delayed and incomplete, was not entirely absent.

“Ms. Zarshenas did not fully comply with the investigatory requests from BCFSA, and at times took months to respond at all,” Pendray wrote in his decision, released in April.

She did, however, make some efforts, over time, to provide the information requested, he said. 

“I accept this fact as an indication that Ms. Zarshenas is not ungovernable,” reads Pendray’s decision.

Zarshenas herself said she believed the failure to respond was a miscommunication — that she had expected her bankruptcy trustee to forward the required documents to BCFSA on her behalf — and that following her assignment into bankruptcy, she no longer had access to her bank accounts.

Pendray’s decision noted the serious end of the disciplinary spectrum that Zarshenas risks approaching. Licence cancellation, he wrote, has been described in previous decisions as the “most severe form of punishment available.”

While cancellation allows for re-admission to the industry, applicants must demonstrate they are of good reputation and suitable to be licensed, in light of the conduct that led to their cancellation.

BCFSA stressed that the new penalty relates solely to Zarshenas’ failure to co-operate with investigators. The underlying allegations of investment fraud remain unproven, and the investigation is ongoing.

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