When Sheryl MacDonald gave up her $75,000 a year salary and a senior government job, in 2001, to run her own pizza business, she never thought she'd end up $140,000 in the hole with no store and little chance of getting her money back.

MacDonald is one of dozens of pizza franchise buyers in Toronto who invested large sums of money for the promise of owning their own pizza shop -- and got nothing in return.

Like others, MacDonald thought her venture was a sure thing. "You know the pizza business is a pretty good business. It's one of the more solid ones," says MacDonald.

The deal MacDonald made was with Reza Solhi.

According to dozens of families - mostly newcomers to Canada -- Solhi took their life savings and left them with nothing but untold debt and empty bank accounts.

It seems no one was keeping tabs on Reza Solhi.

"I didn't do it lightly. I checked with the local association, franchising association. [I] checked with the Better Business Bureau," MacDonald says. With no warnings about Solhi, Sheryl quit her high-paying government job, borrowed $140,000 from the bank and put it all into the pizza store she was promised at a newly minted mall, near Toronto.

After seeing no construction happening at her store, she confronted Reza Solhi. Instead of delivering the new store to MacDonald, Solhi offered her another store where MacDonald says nothing, including the fridge, worked. "The vegetables rotted, the chicken wings stunk, nothing worked. Absolutely nothing worked."

Finally, after months of questions and no real answers from Solhi, Sheryl went to the Toronto police. The fraud unit was already investigating Reza Solhi. Dozens of cases revealed he had been at this scheme for years - first as 3-for-1 Pizza and Wings, followed by Pizza One, Pizza Uno and Anthony's Kitchen. It appears Solhi has been up to no-franchise good for nearly 10 years.

After police charged Solhi, in 2004, with 25 counts of fraud involving 3-for-1 Pizza, victims thought they would recover their losses. A year later, the government dropped the charges against Solhi in exchange for paying $500,000 to some of the franchisees. MacDonald received about $60,000 in compensation - only half of what she put into the deal.

But many of Solhi's victims haven't seen a penny.

Nidhi and Gautam Malik turned over $154,000 to Reza Solhi, in 2006.

The newcomers to Canada bought the franchise hoping to turn it into a family business. "I wanted my parents to come and settle with us and what better than having him run a business," says Gautam.

Today, after selling family property in India and using their life savings, they have no store and are still fighting to get their money back.

After close to twenty unpaid civil judgments against Solhi, totaling more than $1 million, Solhi is still trying to sell franchises. It appears he has moved his venture to the United States where he is using the business name "Anthony's Kitchen."

W-FIVE sent a producer, posing as a potential buyer, to meet with a vice president of "Anthony's Kitchen", to secretly record the sales pitch. Turns out Reza Solhi is still the main guy and it's still a pizza theme. But now, there's a slicker presentation and a higher price tag of $600,000. When we ask to see an existing store, we're told the franchise is so new, there aren't any.