Dishonest Canadian Private Investigators Caught in the Caribbean

Photo from the Toronto Star

In last post I recounted how Canadian private investigators, Cullen Johnson and Elaine White, engaged in the creation of fraudulent evidence especially with regard to offshore bank accounts.

When caught in 2009 they fled Canada for the Bahamas. They would have been well advised to have maintained a low profile but they aggressively responded to the claims against them. They created a website, Superstar Corruption, in which they claimed they were framed with regard to all the allegations of fraud. They continued lashing out at their accusers.

Justice Lee in an Alberta case against them set out:

    ww) In or about July of 2012, Roger and Martin became aware 
    of a website known as www.superstarcorruption. com. From a
    review of the content of that website, it appears that is is a
    website created by, and maintained by, the Defendants. A
    number of segments of the website, titled "The Western Case",
    "Getting Lucky", "Derrick Snowdy, Cunningham and the Gouin
    Brothers", "Closing Observations", and "Concluding  
    Comments", clearly refer to, and pertain to, the Plaintiffs. By
    this website, the Defendants have repeated the Defamatory
    Statements.

In this electronic age it is fascinating and disturbing that both their original website, Internal Affairs at www.internalaffairs.ca and the Superstar Corruption site at www.superstarcorruption.com remain active and can be accessed.

Had they maintained a low profile I suspect they might have been able to avoid extradition but they arrogantly continued their frauds and drew the attention of American authorities.

Earlier this year, after 3 years in the Caribbean, Global News of Canada reported that they were picked up in the Turks & Caicos Islands for an immigration charge and then extradited to Virginia. Last month they agreed to plead guilty to American criminal charges.

An excerpt from the statement of facts signed by Johnson finally admits to the criminal actions:

3. Clients seeking to locate funds that had been stolen from them, or who believed that relatives or former spouses had hidden money or were otherwise trying to trace lost, missing or stolen assets, hired the defendant and/or his companies and/or co-conspirators to investigate the location of such assets. The defendant and co-conspirators would produce reports of information to such clients, which purported to contain financial and other information subject to the clients' requests.

4. Rather than providing valid information, the defendant and co-conspirators provided the client-victims with false and fraudulent data and fabricated banking records, purporting to show that the assets or monies that clients sought had been moved from one banking institution to another in countries such as Monaco, Greece, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Latin America and the Caribbean. The conspirators convinced victims that for additional payments, they could continue to trace the funds to their final destination. The defendant and White provided this information in so called "Confidential Reports" to clients, via facsimile and e-mail that contained bank account numbers, balances and fund transfers that, in truth and fact, as the defendant well knew, did not exist.

5. In or about 2009, the defendant and White were charged by the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada with crimes related to this asset tracing fraud. The defendant was arraigned and assigned a trial date, but shortly thereafter and being fully aware of the charges, fled Canada, traveling first to the Bahamas, and then to the Turks & Caicos Islands, where the defendant and White continued to operate this fraudulent asset tracing business on U.S. and Canadian victims.

6. From 2006 through 2011, victims of the asset tracing scheme wired the conspirators approximately $1,021,738.60 to bank accounts under their control in Canada, Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Crime paid well for several years but the pair are facing a bleak future.

Canadian lawyers have learned a harsh lesson because of Johnson and White that reports from private investigators must be verified. Relying on the integrity of licenced investigators allowed Cullen and Johnson to cause great pain and harm in Canada.

I expect to see a book and/or movie based on the dangerous duo in the near future. Just reciting the facts makes for a full plot.