Radio-Canada

For over a decade, security company Neptune had been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from federal, provincial and municipal governments across Canada to monitor sensitive locations such as courthouses, police stations and immigration detention centres. The company had even been granted federal security clearance, giving it access to RCMP offices and military bases. All these contracts came to an abrupt end after a scathing report by Radio-Canada program “Enquête” revealing that the company was being operated by people using pseudonyms and false identities, a fact that had eluded public authorities. The Quebec government immediately launched an investigation, and Quebec’s revenue agency seized the company’s accounts. Neptune subsequently declared bankruptcy, and the head of the company is facing multiple lawsuits. This reporting shows that investigative journalism is sometimes more powerful than governments in detecting fraudsters, even those who operate within the institutions that are supposed to protect us from them.