By Staff
August 6th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
Here is a good news story.
That $500,000 that was lifted from the city’s bank account in April of 2019 – Regional Police have arrested three – let them out on bail.
In April of 2019, Burlington was the target and victim of a sophisticated email fraud scam. During this offence, approximately $500, 000 was stolen from the city.
A yearlong investigation by the HRPS Fraud Bureau led to the arrest of three males. Search warrants were also executed at two homes.
Arrested and charged:
• Abayomi Musa (38) of Toronto
• Adnan Nawaz (39) of Brampton
• Hardness Oppong (37) of Toronto
All three have jointly been charged with Fraud over $5000. The accused have been released pending a court appearance on October 6, 2020 at the Ontario Court of Justice in Milton.
Anyone with information with regards to this incident is asked to contact Detective Constable Ed Spence of the Regional Fraud Bureau at (905) 465-8742.
Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers. “See something? Hear something? Know something? Contact Crime Stoppers” at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.ca.
I just read the Mayor’s newsletter and specifically its report on the arrest of these three individuals.
In her “my take” commentary the Mayor says “We are all committed to seeing justice done for our residents, and doing everything we can to get back the money that was stolen.”
That statement, in my view, implies the funds have NOT as yet been recovered, which itself implies there has been no claim payment made by the City’s insurers. Bearing in mind the substantial amount of time that has passed since the loss occurred one can only draw the inference that there has been no response insurance company claim payment because the City did not have proper insurance protection.
Any competent City risk and insurance manager and any insurance broker/advisor of competence would have recommended to Council the purchase of a “Crime” policy; and one that would have included “social engineering fraud” coverage, so as to respond to this type of loss.
For me the real issue is not that an employee was easily duped. That unfortunately is very common and can only be countered by having risk management protocols in place and followed. No the real issue is, in my view, whether the City is being well served by either or both its Risk and Insurance Manager and its insurance broker advisor.
So what I really do not understand is, why is there no general outcry from this publication, from its readers, from the residents and taxpayers of Burlington !
No outcry is the Canadian way. Look no further than the $900 million WE debacle where the press and too many sleepy partisan citizens say, nothing to see here. The colour of ones socks is way more interesting for far too many.
I don’t see the parallel. The one is a non-political crime committed by fraudsters against citizens. The simple aim being to steal money. The other was an attempt to get federal assistance money to students that has now been successfully cyboshed by the opposition PCs claiming the PM had a conflict of interest in selecting the organization to administer the distribution of those funds. There may well have been a conflict, but todate I have not heard any claims made that the chosen organization was not qualified to do the job or was defrauding the Canadian people. This second matter is simply an example of our crazy Canadian spiteful political system at is very worst and the opposition PCs single focus being to disrupt the gov’t at every turn no matter the affect. In this instance the effect is the PCs got in the way of students receiving assistance.
Contrary to your suggestion there is a great deal of noise in the press and TV media, on The Hill, and by regular Canadians on social media about the second matter and specifically the conflict aspect. But no noise in Burlington by its press or by residents on social media about recovery or not of the defrauded funds.
I think we would expect a politician of any stripe, at any level of government to scream good news from the roof tops, possibly even trying to take some credit for the news. That we have not had anyone shouting good news from the rooftops that some or all the funds have been recovered would seem to indicate no recovery has been made.
Agree with the sentiments of your final paragraph.
Yeah, yeah, yeah !
But what about the money ?
Congratulations to the police for tracking these people down. It must not be easy to do.
“Regional Police have arrested three – let them out on bail”
Almost correct, but “bail”, with or without surety (money, property etc) is set by a court, not the police ,as suggested above. Police do not release on bail. The forms or release for police are: unconditionally, summons, appearance notice, promise to appear, or a recognizance.
Alternatively, they can be brought before a court, where one of the release forms available in that venue is “release on bail”
Editor’s note: The writer is correct – our use of the word bail was not correct but it got the point across. Those arrested were not kept in custody until a trial takes place. The charges are serious – $500,000 is a lot of money and the process they used was very deliberate.
This is certainly good news!
However some very pertinent questions remain unanswered, at least unanswered in the public domain.
Neither the police report nor this article sheds any light upon whether funds have been recovered or not.
– Has the City received or will it receive any recovery via its insurance policies for those funds not otherwise recovered from the perpetrators or via the banking system?”.
– If the answer to that question is “no”, one must assume no insurance was in place. If that was the case, has that position now been rectified?
– Have simple the simple and easy to enact risk management protocols required as standard procedure by all insurance companies now been put in place?
It would be nice to have answers to these questions, don’t you think ?