He won a million dollars, went to jail and was left with just $97. What happened to Collin McLeod’s money?

“You’re not going to be very happy,” said the longtime friend.

“Why?”

“Your money is all gone.”

McLeod would learn he had just $97 left in his account. And it wasn’t only the money that disappeared. Tens of thousands in cryptocurrency had been transferred. His motorhome, storage locker, nearly all his possessions were gone.

Only three years earlier, he won a million dollars in the provincial lottery.

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• Dec 31, 1969

• Dec 31, 1969

It was, he reflects now, “the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

There was a time in his life when McLeod felt like he couldn’t lose.

He could pick winning slot machines at casinos. He knew he would win on that lottery ticket he bought at a Mac’s milk store on Garth Street at Garrow Drive on Hamilton Mountain.

With his $1 million he also won a free ticket, and that ticket was also a winner: $1,700.

“Pretty wild,” McLeod remembers.

Now, at 62, he’s broke.

After he won the lottery, he was arrested for driving without a licence, and ultimately spent five months in jail on a drug charge before being released on bail.

When he returned to his basement apartment at 330 Mohawk Rd. E., he had been cleaned out. His dad’s ashes. His prized watches, Harley-Davidson gear and high-end kitchenware. He didn’t even have a pair of underwear.

When McLeod was arrested, his possessions were left in his apartment and a storage locker in Niagara Region. He had vehicles registered in friends’ names. He was told some nefarious people had approached his friends and forced them to hand over his motorhome. The story didn’t make sense, but he didn’t know what to believe. He was also only beginning to understand the full extent of what was gone.

One item that mysteriously had not been taken was his motorcycle, which he sold. It was the only money he had left and he used it to hide out in hotels. He’d been cleaned out and he wasn’t sure who did it, or if they’d come after him. He was uncertain about his safety and whom to trust.

But then a strange thing happened — nothing. No one came after him, no one threatened him and his suspicions started to turn to those closest to him. 

For the first time in his life, he had nothing. He moved back home to Smithville, a small community in Niagara Region about 40 minutes outside Hamilton. He moved into an apartment in a cluster of properties his family owns.

Nearly three years later, he’s still in that Smithville apartment, broke, in poor health and angry about a lack of justice.

He believes he was set up by people he thought were friends. And he believes Hamilton police have not done enough solve the case, including retrieving his stolen goods. He reported the thefts immediately.

“I’m a pretty educated idiot,” he likes to say.

Before his arrest, McLeod made good money as health and safety inspector on pipelines and before that he worked for about five years as a law clerk.

McLeod is also honest about the mistakes he’s made in life. He’s no angel, he readily admits.

In his six decades, he’s been stabbed, shot and had his throat slashed.

He has a criminal record that includes assault and numerous driving offences. Most of his record is old, and before his recent trouble he spent many years working and living without issue.

Looking back, McLeod sees it was his father’s death in 2016 that began his downward spiral.

“My dad was my best friend,” McLeod says.

No matter where in the world he was, he phoned his dad every day, and he always knew he had a place to come home.

He also got an inheritance from his father’ estate, before his lucky ticket.

That is when he moved to the Mohawk Road apartment. He let a buddy move in, too. His place became mecca for partying.

Then he won the lottery.

In December 2018, McLeod was in Windsor driving in his Lincoln Navigator SUV and the lottery ticket was on the dash. While driving, he scanned it with his phone and looked up to see “so many f—-ing zeros.”

At first, he thought it was a $100,000 win.

Then he stopped and looked more closely. McLeod counted the zeros.

Still in disbelief, he went to a nearby Food Basics to check the ticket — only to realize it was gone.

He had stopped at a friend’s place before going to the store and raced back to see if he could find it. He spotted the ticket blowing across her lawn in the snow and, with his second stroke of luck that day, grabbed the winning ticket again.

When he made it back to the store — this time with the winning ticket in hand — an alarm went off when he checked the numbers. The phone rang and it was an OLG representative.

McLeod didn’t want to go down to OLG headquarters in Toronto to get his money. Can’t you just mail it to me, he asked?

But that’s not how it works.

In Toronto several weeks later, he was interviewed for hours. They knew every detail down to the clothes he was wearing when he bought the winning ticket in Hamilton. Finally, with a big cheque in hand, he posed for a picture used in the OLG press release.

“It didn’t really set in until right now at the prize centre,” he is quoted as saying in the OLG press release.

The lottery win was like pouring gasoline on a fire.

McLeod had already been the life of the party. His apartment was the gathering place for old friends and new.

“I know a lot of people,” McLeod says often.

But after the win everything accelerated.

“Every day I woke up and did coke,” McLeod says. “Sometimes I wouldn’t go to bed.”

When he was partying, he rarely left the house. Friends and friends of friends would come to him. The landlord, Gary Walker, was his friend, so no one complained. It was Walker who picked him from up jail after making bail.

Due to a long history of driving offences, including repeatedly being caught driving without a licence, McLeod is prohibited from driving for life.

That means, no matter how much money he has, he can never buy a car in his own name. 

So, back when he had money, he put his vehicles, including a Mercedes and the motorhome, in friends’ names. 

Meanwhile, fearful of a possible lawsuit over an assault from years prior, he put his lottery winnings in the account of another friend.

Finally, two friends convinced him to buy cryptocurrency. McLeod is not tech-savvy, so they helped and he says they had the passwords.

By early 2021, McLeod says he realized things were getting out of hand and he needed to pull back. He even called about going to rehab.

But then it all fell apart quickly.

On April 8, on his way to a wedding, he stopped at The Beer Store. As he came out, he was arrested for driving while prohibited.

Hamilton police told him they also had a warrant for his apartment, where they found drugs.

McLeod was stunned. The driving offence was obvious, but the drugs? He admits a small bag of cocaine on a table was his, but police found other drugs that McLeod maintains were not his.

During the months he spent in jail before being granted bail, he spoke with his friends regularly. They sent him money for the canteen, but didn’t say a word about what was happening on the outside.

He had no idea he’d been robbed until the day he stepped outside after finally getting bail. Why did no one warn him before?

McLeod’s is a story that almost sounds unbelievable. But much of his story is corroborated by court documents, text messages and video and audio recordings that include him confronting his friends about his missing property and money.

Three months ago, in January 2024, McLeod pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of ecstasy for the purpose of trafficking.

According to the agreed facts read by the Crown, Hamilton police searched his apartment on the day of his April 8, 2021, arrest. They found a safe and in it 46 grams of MDMA. Police also found $77 and two watches.

McLeod’s lawyer, Jaime Stephenson, told the court McLeod acknowledges he had care and control over the safe, since it was his apartment. And given the amount of MDMA, conceded it was for the purpose of trafficking.

That was enough to convict McLeod, even though he maintains the drugs weren’t his.

He already pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and possession of a weapon (a knife McLeod says he had for a work purpose) in September 2022. For that he was given credit for 126 days in pretrial custody and two years probation.

Court heard that McLeod’s last conviction was in 2008. Given the gap in his record and medical issues, including COPD, Ontario Court Justice George Gage agreed to a nine-month conditional sentence for the drugs, with the first six months on house arrest.

Stephenson told the court that McLeod worked as a health and safety inspector, but was off work for health issues. He also worked as a legal administrative assistant for various offices in the Hamilton area. McLeod sought treatment for a cocaine addiction.

“Several years ago, he had a windfall and won the lottery,” Stephenson said in court. “He also had a significant inheritance from his father.

“Unfortunately, he took on a lifestyle not in keeping with being healthy and working and as such finds himself back before the courts.”

She also told the judge about the investigation into “theft and fraud perpetrated against (McLeod).” One person was arrested in this investigation, but no one has been charged.

Just before the end of the court hearing, Stephenson asked the court to give McLeod six months to pay a court fee.

The lottery money is all gone? Gage asked.

“Unfortunately, much of it has been stolen and used nefariously,” she replied.

Today, with his own court case behind him, McLeod is focused on getting answers about the investigation into the theft and fraud against him. He believes he was set up, making him an easy target while behind bars.

Little is known about progress of the police investigation, but no one has been charged and McLeod has not seen anything returned.

The Spectator has confirmed that one of McLeod’s old friends, Mike (Goldie) Goldsmith, was arrested and questioned in late December in relation to the cryptocurrency theft. He was released without charge.

McLeod says Goldsmith was one of the friends who introduced him to cryptocurrency. McLeod’s missing motorhome was also in Goldsmith’s name, according to an insurance slip and other records viewed by The Spectator.

The Spectator left messages attempting to reach Goldsmith, or a lawyer on his behalf, but did not get a response.

The other friend involved in his cryptocurrency died last year, McLeod says. His fear is anyone involved will just blame him because “dead men can’t talk.”

McLeod shared banking and other documents with the Spectator that show hundreds of thousands in his bank account and cryptocurrency that are gone.

It was only after he got out of jail that he realized money was being transferred to friends’ accounts weekly from his account, before he was even arrested. He believes they took his debit card and isn’t even sure exactly how much was stolen.

McLeod says his lottery winnings were put in an account that as of October 2019 had $708,000, according to records shared with the Spectator.

Another screenshot of his holdings in cryptocurrency XRP showed that in April 2021 — at the time of his arrest — the tokens were worth about $240,000.

McLeod also shared videos and screenshots of text messages between friends.

For example: “Does Collin know you set him up to get busted for drugs lol?”

In other videos, they talk about selling some of his items on Facebook Marketplace.

This includes multiple videos of recorded conversations with Walker — an old friend who owns the Mohawk house where McLeod rented the basement.

The Spectator has made multiple attempts to speak with Walker, who said he would speak with the newspaper. This included texting a list of questions. However, no calls or questions were answered. 

Kayla Reed, a friend who frequently hung out with the group at McLeod’s place, told The Spectator she moved into his basement apartment after his arrest. She claims it was with McLeod’s permission, and he told her to “make herself at home.”

However, she says she didn’t stay there all the time and that a lot of people were in and out, with the door always unlocked. She said she took some items, such as towels, but believed she had permission. She says she didn’t know his dad’s ashes were there and said she didn’t realize the extent of what was taken until after McLeod got out.

She says she has no knowledge of the missing motorhome, storage locker contents or cryptocurrency. And money transferred from McLeod’s bank account to hers was done through another friend, and she believed it was with McLeod’s permission (he has given her money before).

Reed has never spoken with police about this case.

When McLeod first reported the thefts to police, he was assigned a detective, who later contacted the tech crime unit, which supports other investigative units within Hamilton police. A significant part of the team’s work is forensically searching phones and computers seized by police in investigations.

The team also has expertise investigating cryptocurrency thefts. Because of the cryptocurrency theft in McLeod’s case, the main detective he has been communicating with is Det. Const. Kenneth Kirkpatrick.

Police said they cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, but Kirkpatrick spoke generally about the growth of cryptocurrency thefts and the complexity of investigating them.

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses blockchain technology that is decentralized, with records spread across many computers for security. The most well-known is Bitcoin. Like stocks, the value of cryptocurrency goes up and down so its monetary value is constantly changing.

The first major case on the radar of Hamilton police was a theft valued at more than $46 million committed in 2020 by a teen, Kirkpatrick said. The case involved a SIM swap hack that involves someone tricking a cellphone provider to switch the number over to a new SIM card they own, giving the scammer access to a victim’s phone.

Kirkpatrick said SIM swaps and data breaches are the most common way cryptocurrency is stolen and typically victims are targeted by strangers.

In McLeod’s case, McLeod believes those who had access to his crypto passwords transferred his cryptocurrency against his will, making it a highly unusual case.

For McLeod, the wait for action is agonizing and also confusing. While he understands the complexity of cryptocurrency investigations, it feels as though little has been done to investigate the property theft.

Sitting in his apartment, sick and angry, McLeod is consumed with questions about what happened to his money and his stuff. Nearly three years has passed since his arrest and he’s only in worse shape.

It’s not even clear if police are still investigating the property thefts.

McLeod insists he knows where some of his belongings are being held, but police have not searched, nor have they interviewed some of the so-called friends he thinks are involved.

More than anything, he wants his dad’s ashes back.

“Something isn’t right,” he says.

Nicole O’Reilly is a reporter with the Hamilton Spectator.