Fraud from a company I worked with in Montreal

Greetings from San Diego

Sep 15, 2024

With vacations and conferences, summer has been a busy time. On the last newsletter I promised I’d tell you about a company I used to work with when my family lived in Montreal. The farther away I get from that time, the crazier they seem.

Do you think all Canadian companies are as upstanding as Dudley Do-Right?

In the mid-1990s I worked at Bank of Montreal, and one of my clients was SNC-Lavalin, the largest Canadian engineering company. It has since changed its name to AtkinsRéalis. SNC won huge contracts in Turkey and Pakistan for subway transportation systems, and I always wondered if they made payments to government officials to get this business. They used a number of middlemen and consultants, who could pass on bribes to decision makers.

At that time I had a secondary role in trade finance and was not SNC’s main contact at Bank of Montreal. I got more involved with the company for a contract they’d won in Libya in the 1980s, when the Gaddafis controlled the country. The Great Man-Made River project was one of the largest engineering developments in the world. Its aim was to provide a sustainable water supply by transporting water from the underground aquifers in the Sahara Desert to Libya’s coastal cities. I helped our bank set up the instruments to guarantee what Libya was to pay to SNC. It was enormously complex and, as I remember, governed by laws of several countries. I always wondered how SNC got that contract.

Well, the company was closer to the Gaddafis than people realized. In 2011, when the civil war took place, Muammar’s son, Saadi, needed to get out of the country. Fast. An SNC executive, Riyadh Ben Aissa, facilitated a payment of $200K to charter a private jet to fly him to Niger. Another executive, Stéphane Roy, coordinated logistics.

In 2012, allegations of corruption surfaced in Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police began investigating whether bribes had been paid. Ben Aissa, the same senior company executive who helped Saadi escape Libya, was arrested in Switzerland. He was accused of paying millions of dollars of bribes to Saadi. He pleaded guilty to bribery and money laundering and was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Then he was extradited to Canada to face additional charges.

The RCMP charged SNC itself in 2015. They alleged that the company had offered CAD 48 million in bribes and committed fraud, and that they’d defrauded the Libyan government of CAD 130 million.

If found guilty of criminal charges, SNC would not be able to bid on most large international contracts. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his office tried to persuade the attorney general not to pursue criminal charges. This led to an Ethics Committee investigation that, in 2019, found that Trudeau had violated the Conflict of Interest Act. Several government officials had to resign, but Trudeau is still in office.

Ultimately, SNC paid CAD 280 million and was placed on probation for three years for public contract bids. You would think that this would be their last controversy. But SNC was also involved in another crazy fraud case at the same time.

I’ll describe that in my next newsletter.

Events and talks with other authors.

On August 18, I got to talk with two other very successful writers and a terrific moderator at the “Writers on Writing” event at the Muzeo Library in Anaheim. I was with Joe Ide, Janis Thomas, and Maddie Margarita moderated. I learned much from all of them.

My Sisters in Crime podcast with Julie Hennrikus also streamed, where we discussed the challenges of becoming a writer. You can find it here.

I had never done a Rotary presentation. The San Diego Central Rotary Club met and I gave a talk about how even business folks can become writers. There were about 60 people there, and it was great fun.

I had a very fun interview with Bonnar Spring’s Crime Wave podcast, which just came up on the internet last week. Listen to it here.

If you would like me to talk to your book club, either in person or virtually, I would be honored. Just respond to this email and we can set something up.

Bouchercon

I got to go to the largest mystery reader and writer conference in the world. This year Bouchercon was held in Nashville. All events took place in the giant Gaylord Opryland Resort Center. There were probably four or five conferences going on at once. Ours had about 1,600 people. The Gaylord covered space held hotel rooms, conference centers, bars and restaurants. Plus a river that ran down the middle of the enclosure. The bestselling author, Harlan Coben, said he felt as if he were inside a terrarium. And it was moving. Here is a picture of the center:

One of the events that went on simultaneously was a beauty contest for eight and nine year-olds. They wore costumes like wedding dresses and their hair was so styled their mothers must have spent hours on them. I wanted to take pictures but was afraid of what I might be accused of.

I got to see the famous Shawn Cosby, whose career has taken off. Also members of our Blackbird Writers group.

The panel I was on was called Rich and Miserable. We talked about how wealth polluted the lives of imagined and real people. Other participants were Lawrence Light (a well-known business journalist), Jon Lindstrom (A Hollywood actor), Paul Chitlik (a TV and movie writer who wrote some episodes of The Twilight Zone), and Kate Michaelson (a debut author). Michele Drier did an excellent job moderating. One of the things I mentioned was a bank I worked for that had a full-tine psychologist to help clients with their family problems.

Some books you might like

The Far Side of the Desert by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman

The Far Side of the Desert is a political thriller by writer Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, a journalist, short story writer, and novelist who has written several novels. She is also a colleague at my publisher, Oceanview. Her novel is told mostly from two points of view, one sister in the news industry and the other working for the U.S. State Department. It takes place in Morocco, Gibraltar and Washington DC. When the State Department sister, Monte, is kidnapped in Morocco, Samantha is forced to go find her. Monte is taken to a remote desert where her kidnapper becomes her protecter and she succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome. The kidnapper is a very interesting and multifaceted character. The novel explores how he, Samantha, and Monte sacrifice parts of their morality to succeed in doing something more important than themselves. It delves into relationships and how parents can drift apart to pursue their careers, as well as how a kidnapping crisis can bring those family conflicts into focus. I found the novel quite compelling. It reminded me a little bit of The Little Drummer Girl, by John le Carré. The Far Side of the Desert is well researched with much historical background to give the reader a feel for the settings and how the political history influences the characters. It slowly builds to an exciting ending.

Call the Dark by J. Todd Scott

I believe that Call the Dark is the seventh novel from J. Todd Scott. He was formerly a DEA agent for many years and brings that expertise to his books. Call the Dark is a thriller with elements of magical realism. It takes place on a mountain in Appalachia that is filled with the spirits of the dead, as well as the evil that has happened there. A plane mysteriously crashes on the mountain and several characters are drawn to the site. Maggie is seeking to escape the crime bosses from whom she has stolen money. One of them is a sociopath who won’t hesitate to use anyone and any method to seize the crypto currency containing the spoils taken from him. Another is a young woman whose two eyes are different colors and seems to have supernatural powers. The new sheriff in the town is trying to get up to speed, and the old sheriff is mourning the loss of his son on the same mountain. This is a character-driven novel with several points of view. It is well written and the author uses unique language to describe the setting and the otherworldly powers set loose. It builds to an exciting climax.