Construction Fraud
Canada post resets passwords for online customers after reported unauthorized access to accounts
October 18, 2019 – Canada Post informed on October 16 that it is resetting the passwords of all online customer accounts after unauthorized accesses to online accounts have been reported to the postal service. According to the national postal operator, their network...
Former comptroller of hockey training school sentenced for fraud
Charlottetown (October 17, 2019) – Former Andrews Hockey Growth Programs’ comptroller, Courtney Patricia Johnston, was sentenced to 60 days in jail for defrauding her former employer in provincial court in Charlottetown on October 15. Within a stretch of four months,...
Florida man convicted who was involved in defrauding the City of Ottawa
Fort Lauderdale, USA (October 17, 2019) – Elvin I. Lewis, Jr. has been convicted by a South Florida Jury. Lewis laundered more than US$3 million in fraud proceeds obtained from international cyber scams using Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes between November...
Maryland man sentenced for using Ponzi scheme worth over US$396 million
Baltimore (October 16, 2019) – Kevin B. Merrill from Maryland was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for conspiracy and fraud conducting a Ponzi scheme worth over US$396 million. Together with his co-conspirators, he defrauded investors using his companies...
Crime Stoppers warns against romance scam impersonating Jeremy Renner
Vernon (October 15, 2019) – Crime Stoppers Central Okanagan issued a warning on October 10 against a romance scam in British Columbia impersonating Avengers Star Jeremy Renner. The online romance scammer approaches women on social media sites with fraudulent accounts...
Fraudulent school accountant sentenced for half-million-dollar fraud
St. John's (October 15, 2019) – A fraudulent former school accountant, Kimberly Stagg, was sentenced for defrauding her then employer St. Bonaventure’s college of more than half a million dollars. After she had pleaded guilty in June, she was sentenced to 3 years in...
TransUnion was hacked; the personal information of 37,000 Canadians might be stolen
Toronto (October 11, 2019) – TransUnion, one of Canada’s credit monitoring agencies, was hacked between June and July. Due to fraudulent use of the login credentials of a business customer, the personal information of 37,000 Canadians might have...
Former highly regarded tax lawyer arrested for fraud by OPP
Orillia (October 10, 2019) – Former highly regarded tax lawyer, Etienne Gadbois, was arrested and charged with fraud and obstruction of justice by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). The OPP had been investigating against Gadbois and his company ‘Gadbois Commodity...
Securities Commission issues warning against Aureum Energy investments
Winnipeg (October 10, 2019) – On October 8th, the Manitoba Securities Commission (MSC) warned against investing in the U.S. based company Aureum Energy. The so-called ‘Energy Project’ is actively promoting investments in Manitoba. The MSC issued the investor alert due...
RCMP arrests two suspects in connection with Bell data breach
Ottawa (October 9, 2019) – RCMP arrested Nana Koranteng and Jesiah Russell-Francis in connection with the Bell data breach in 2018. On October 8, fraud charges were laid against the suspects from Montreal who are alleged to have been involved in the cyber-attack. Nana...
Top New York lawyer sentenced in college admissions scandal
Boston (October 9, 2019) – Former co-chairman of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Gordon Caplan has been sentenced to one month in prison in connection with the U.S. college admissions scandal. The top attorney of a prestigious New York law firm paid US$75,000 to...
Used car salesman defrauds 14 customers over two years by selling cars he never delivered
Dartmouth (October 8, 2019) – Used car salesman, Michael David Surette, duped 14 customers between 2015 and 2018 by selling cars he never delivered. The total amount the customers of the Used Car Factory 21 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia were defrauded of adds up to...
Former church treasurer sentenced to two years in prison for fraud
Ottawa (October 7, 2019) – Former volunteer church treasurer and retired federal government accountant, Barton Burron, was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud over $5,000 on October 4. Burron defrauded the St. Luke Lutheran Church in New Edinburgh out of...
Nanaimo Woman sentenced for defrauding two local businesses of about $43K
Nanaimo (October 7, 2019) – Jennifer Elizabeth Wood from Nanaimo was sentenced for defrauding two local businesses of almost $43,000 on October 3. She performed a fraudulent return scheme on her former employer Slegg Building Materials in 2016 and drove away from a...
Former Vaughan mayor Di Biase charged with breach of trust and municipal corruption
Vaughan (October 4, 2019) – OPP’s economic crime and corruption squad charged former Vaughan mayor Michael Di Biase with breach of trust and municipal corruption as a result of a four-and-a-half-years investigation. Di Biase is accused of receiving a benefit from the...
Toronto bookkeeper allegedly defrauds employer out of $2M
Toronto (October 3, 2019) – Sharina Imran-Khan, a bookkeeper from Toronto, allegedly defrauded her employer BHI Holdings out of $2 million in a three year period. As a result of a fraud investigation of the Toronto Police, the 42-year-old was arrested and charged with...
Regional scam alert in Kingston due to phone scam asking for Bitcoin
Kingston (October 3, 2019) – The Kingston police issued a regional scam alert. Two residents reported being defrauded out of a total of about $25,000 in Bitcoin by phone scammers impersonating police officers. The police remind the public that they would never ask for...
Homeowner warns about rental scam
Langley (October 2, 2019) – Homeowners from Langley warn about a rental scam. Their house was apparently fraudulently posted on Craigslist as a rental property, Global News reported. As already four people were scammed, the legitimate owners of the property are...
Man arrested in Peterborough for theft and credit card fraud
Peterborough (October 2, 2019) – Peterborough police arrested and charged 23-year-old Liam Bramley-Montgomery for theft and credit card fraud on September 29. He is accused of stealing a wallet from a vehicle and fraudulently using the obtained credit cards in a local...
Fiat Chrysler pays US$40M settlement fine to U.S. securities regulator for inflating sales numbers
Washington D.C., USA (October 1, 2019) – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and its daughter company FCA US agreed to pay US$40 million as a civil penalty to settle charges with the U.S. securities regulator. The Automaker is alleged of misleading investors by inflating sales...
Judge accepts agreed statement of facts in ‘Exit Realty on the Rock’ fraud case
St. John’s (October 1, 2019) – Judge Robert Stack accepted the agreed statement of facts in the ‘Exit Realty on the Rock’ fraud case accusing former owner Anne Squires of theft, fraud, forgery, and breach of trust. The fraud was revealed in early 2016. In April 2019,...