[su_heading size=”21″]Toronto Police Services arrested three York employees, in relation to a $1.6 million fraud investigation, following a tip from a whistleblower on March 19.[/su_heading]
The police allege three employees were involved in a fraudulent billing scheme at the university, between November 2005 and October 2012.
Joanne Rider of York media says the university first became aware of the alleged fraud in October 2012, and have recovered the alleged funds lost.
“We have already recovered the funds plus cost, this investigation been ongoing for some time and we alerted the police immediately but it took TPS sometime to do their investigation,” says Rider.
“As soon as the university was informed that there was a suspicion of fraud, we did two things: we informed the TPS and we engaged an external firm to conduct a forensic audit.”
Vittoria Caparello has been charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000, Yossi Zaidfeld, with one count of fraud over $5,000, and Melissa Caparello with possession of property obtained by crime of under $5,000.
Only Melissa Caparello was a York employee at the time of her arrest, employed by the university since January 2005.
Rider says the university is currently doing a review of Caparello and once a decision has been made the university will appropriate action.
The university credits the implementation of new policies to finding out about the alleged fraud, which were implemented following a previous incident where two university managers were allegedly accused of defrauding the school of more than $1.2 million.
Rider says with the following the previous alleged fraud case, the university implemented a number of policies to tighten financial controls in the university. One of these policies was concerning the misappropriation of funds and frauds within the university.
“We wanted to provide a whistleblower with a process and policy around coming forward and alerting the university,” says Rider. “So it was at that time an individual came forward and indicated through they suspected suspicious activity.”
The identity of the whistleblower remains confidential.
Rider couldn’t comment on any of the details of the alleged fraud as it’s still on ongoing investigation. However, according to a news release sent by TPS, further arrests and charges are to be anticipated.
Hamid Adem
News Editor
