Sanjay Madan, the Ontario government computer specialist fired after the alleged theft of $11 million in COVID-19 funds flew to India with the alleged ill-gotten cash shortly after being confronted about the missing money, court documents say. During the search, investigators found two Bank of Montreal ATM deposit slips from different accounts and branches. One, from Dec. 10, 2019 at 12:53 p.m., shows a $25,000 cheque was deposited, bringing the balance to $593,493.57.The second, from Jan. 26, 2018 at 4:34 p.m., shows $3,000 was withdrawn, leaving the balance in that account at $122,002. Investigators searching his office discovered “an image of a permanent resident card and driver’s license for the Republic of Panama for Sanjay Madan in Sanjay Madan’s government email account,” the court documents say. Court documents also say Sanjay Madan registered a company in Panama called Newgen Ventures Inc., which is an owner of three properties in Waterloo, including a 30-unit student housing apartment complex recently listed for sale for about $8 million. Records show Sanjay Madan also purchased two villas in Hyderabad, India in 2013.

TORONTO – Indo-Canadian techie accused in the 11 million Ontario COVID-19 fraud took tens of thousands of dollars to India, according to court documents.

Sanjay Madan, the Ontario government computer specialist fired after the alleged theft of $11 million in COVID-19 funds flew to India with the alleged ill-gotten cash shortly after being confronted about the missing money, court documents say.

Madan, terminated in November from his $176,608-a-year Ministry of Education job, withdrew about $80,000 from his CIBC account in August, according to new civil court filings by his lawyer, Christopher Du Vernet.

In September, Madan — who has Canadian and Indian citizenship as well as permanent residency status in Panama, a tax haven that has no extradition treaty with Canada — jetted to India, where he owns two villas, reported Toronto Star

Government lawyers allege he also “gave large bundles of cash to Indian relatives who were visiting Canada in September ... and had them carry that cash back to India with them.”

“The circumstances and timing of these enormous cash withdrawals and subsequent cash runs to India lead to only one reasonable inference: that Madan was shipping money offshore so as to avoid detection and seizure of same,” the province alleged in its factum last month.

Madan was asked about the India trip, during cross-examination by government lawyers who filed the civil action to recover the allegedly missing funds from the Support for Families program. The COVID-19 program gave parents $200 for each child up to age 12 and $250 for each special needs child and youth up to age 21 to offset pandemic-related education expenses.

“Mr. Madan admitted that he personally transported roughly $21,000-$30,000 in Canadian cash to India in September 2020 and left it there with relatives. He also admitted to having Indian relatives who were visiting Canada in September 2020 take roughly $18,000 in cash back to India with them,” the government’s filings say.

Weeks before his trip to India — while he was still under suspension with pay — he tearfully insisted to ministry colleagues “his wife and family have absolutely nothing to do with this,” the documents say.

Madan was the information technology leader on the computer application for the $378 million Support for Families program.

After he was sacked, his spouse, Shalini Madan, was dismissed from her $132,513-a-year job as manager of E-Ministries Support at the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.

Their adult sons, Chinmaya Madan and Ujjawal Madan, also worked in lower-level government IT jobs, but left voluntarily last summer.

According to documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court, the government alleges that last spring “some or all of” Sanjay, Shalini, Chinmaya, and Ujjawal Madan, and associate Vidhan Singh perpetrated “a massive fraud” to funnel $11 million in payments to hundreds of TD and Bank of Montreal accounts.

The province’s allegations have not been proven in court and through their lawyers, the Madans and Singh have not commented publicly beyond Ujjawal Madan telling the Star in November that “it’s not a good time.”

Repeated calls and emails seeking comment were not returned Monday or Tuesday.

There are seven Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets squad detectives investigating, but no criminal charges have been laid.

Madan has his passports and is allowed to travel.

In August, when provincial officials sought to retrieve laptops, tablets, and cellphones from Sanjay and Chinmaya Madan, the older man became very emotional, according to internal government emails filed with the court.

“He advised that his family is devastated by this and due to his [redacted] he is a bit slow to respond and asked for patience,” wrote Marie Dearlove, executive assistant to Soussan Tabari, the Ministry of Education’s chief information officer, to ministry human resources director Nadine Ramdial.

“He proceeded to state he would fully co-operate and would not interfere into the investigation. He repeated several times that his wife and family have absolutely nothing to do with this,” continued Dearlove on Aug. 14.“At this point he started to cry and it was difficult to understand what he was saying for the next minute and then he said he had to leave the call,” she wrote.

Thirty minutes later, according to the email thread, “Sanjay contacted one of his staff members … stating his family had nothing to do with it. The employee contacted the acting director to let him know about the call.”

The court documents say Dearlove later told OPP detectives that “Sanjay became upset during the call and said, sobbing, that according to a Hindu saying, ‘if he keeps lying, his punishment will be that his wife will die,’ or words to that effect.”

In an email from his personal Outlook account on Aug. 17, Sanjay Madan told his boss Tabari he was “gathering courage to dial into teleconference or video conference” with her the following day.

That was a few weeks before his flight to India.

Some of his emails in the court submission are redacted for privacy reasons, because he appears to be discussing his personal health.

According to the documents, Tabari “was upset by the call,” during which Sanjay Madan wept.

“She advises that Sanjay had always seemed [redacted] to her, that he had been a model employee, and that he had worked with hundreds of people, none of whom had reported any problems. She never had anything other than good feedback about him,” the court filings said.

Investigators searching his office discovered “an image of a permanent resident card and driver’s license for the Republic of Panama for Sanjay Madan in Sanjay Madan’s government email account,” the court documents say.

Both Panamanian documents were issued in 2019.

During the search, investigators found two Bank of Montreal ATM deposit slips from different accounts and branches. One, from Dec. 10, 2019 at 12:53 p.m., shows a $25,000 cheque was deposited, bringing the balance to $593,493.57.

The second, from Jan. 26, 2018 at 4:34 p.m., shows $3,000 was withdrawn, leaving the balance in that account at $122,002.

Those BMO accounts are different from the CIBC account used to access the funds brought to India.

Court documents say Sanjay Madan registered a company in Panama called Newgen Ventures Inc., which is an owner of three properties in Waterloo, including a 30-unit student housing apartment complex recently listed for sale for about $8 million.

Records show Sanjay Madan also purchased two villas in Hyderabad, India in 2013. The Star previously reported he had a personal loan with an Indian bank for 97.7 million rupees (about $1.75 million).

The provincial government has obtained an injunction freezing the family’s assets, which also include a seven-bedroom-seven-bathroom house in North York, six Toronto condominiums, and more than $1 million in profits from the September sale of a four-bedroom-four-bathroom house.

In his court documents contesting that injunction, Sanjay Madan attested his son, Chinmaya, is working from home in Toronto for Microsoft in Seattle and earns $130,000 to $140,000 (U.S.) per year.

He said his son, Ujjawal, is doing his masters at Atlanta’s Georgia Institute of Technology, which costs $75,000 (U.S.) in annual tuition plus another $25,000 (U.S.) for living expenses.

Courtesy Toronto Star