A Toronto bureaucrat was fired following a fraud probe concerning $11M in COVID-19 funds. The probe?s court documents state that Sanjay Madan took tens of thousands of dollars to India. According to court documents, Madan worked as a computer specialist in Toronto for the Ontario government prior to allegedly flying to India together with tens of thousands of dollars in cash after he was confronted about the missing money.
Chain of Events
In November 2020, Sanjay Madan was terminated from his job at the Ministry of Education in Toronto which nets him $176,608 a year. His lawyer Christopher Du Vernet says that he withdrew $80,000 from his CIBC account in August and then flew to India in September. He holds both Canadian and Indian citizenship as well as permanent residency status in Panama. Panama has no extradition treaty with Canada and is a known tax haven. This is not all. Government lawyers allege that Madan also gave huge amounts of cash to relatives from India who visited him in September. Those relatives are alleged to have also taken money with them. The province alleged in their factum that the timings of the enormous cash withdrawals and the cash runs to India point to the possibility that Madan was shipping money offshore to avoid seizure and detection.
During a cross-examination carried out by government lawyers for the civil action to get back the alleged missing funds from the Support for Families program, Madan admitted that he personally transported between $21,000 to $30,000 Canadian to India and left the cash with relatives. The Support for Families program was the province?s response to the COVID-19 crisis which gives parents $200 for each child below the age of 12 and $250 for child and youth up to 21 years of age that are special needs. The fund is to help offset pandemic-related education expenses.
While Madan was under suspension at the start of the investigation, he insisted that his wife and family were not involved. He was the information technology leader for the Support for Families program which is worth $378 million. After he was fired, his wife Shalini Madan was also fired from her job as manager of E-Ministries Support at the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services in Toronto in which she used to make $132,513 a year. Their sons Ujjawal Madan and Chinmaya Madan both used to work for lower-level government IT jobs but both left voluntarily during summer 2020.
Huge Fraud Case is Still Ongoing
Documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court by the government alleges that some or all of the members of the Madan family as well as associate Vidhan Singh executed a fraud funneling $11 million to hundreds of TD and Bank of Montreal Accounts. These allegations are not yet proven in court. ?Calls and emails made to the accused for comments in relation to the fraud remain unreturned. No criminal charges have been laid yet although 7 detectives from the Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets squad are investigating what happened. The family has their passports and are allowed to travel.
There is an injunction to freeze the family?s assets including the more than $1M profits for selling a house in September, their 6 condominiums in Toronto, and a 7-bedroom 7-bathroom house in New York. The family attest that their sons are making their own money working from home and are attending post-graduate studies.
Suspected fraud whether it be at home or in the workplace, should be reported for proper investigations to take place. If you?re suspicious about some fraud that you think may be going on, do not hesitate to contact the authorities. For personal issues, you can avail of our private investigation services for help. Contact us now!
