Crooked in Canada

A Canadian soldier on a furlough, a Canadian home-builder, and a Canadian skimmer have all made headlines in Australia this month, and for all the wrong reasons, though in all fairness to the home-builder he didn’t do anything illegal–his luck just ran out. The other two clowns though, well they are giving Canadians a bit of a bad name down here in Oz, and CG thinks that they deserve a mention in Crooked in Canada.

Sapper David Langlois-Fequet was arrested in Byron Bay, not far from where I live, and he is facing a rape charge–that not having consent getting him into some serious trouble. The story goes that a young German traveler awoke beside her boyfriend in the bottom bunk of a shared dorm in a hostel after feeling something between her legs. Imagine her surprise when she realized that it wasn’t her boyfriend.

Fequet is attached to the 1st Combat Engineers Regiment out of Edmonton and his unit is currently serving in Afghanistan. He was granted bail and has returned to active duty.

The skimmer, he was arrested by Western Australia Police’s major fraud squad unit, and at this time CG has been unable to find out the identity of this crooked Canadian, not that his identity isn’t somewhere on the Internet by now.

The story goes that he was hitting the drive-thrus at McDonald’s restaurants in Western Australia and switching the bankcard machines, which then transmitted pin numbers to criminals. The fraud netted just over $AU4-million. This story is still unfolding. This story continues to develop. See news release below.

OPERATION MINTOX ARRESTS

Two men have been arrested in Sydney in relation to the organised crime skimming of debit and credit cards at McDonald’s restaurants in Western Australia.

The arrests follow extensive inquiries nationally and internationally by the WA Police Major Fraud Squad and Technology Crime Investigations Unit, with the assistance of other national and international law enforcement agencies.

The two men were apprehended on Western Australian Arrest Warrants on charges of Conspiracy to Defraud. The first man is a 36 year old British citizen who lives in United Kingdom. He was arrested on Monday 21 December 2009 and appeared in the Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday morning 22 December 2009 where Perth Detectives successfully sought his extradition to Western Australia. He was remanded in custody to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday 23 December 2009.

The second man is a 31 year old Canadian citizen who lives in Canada. He was arrested on Tuesday morning 22 December 2009 and will appear in the Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday morning where Perth Detectives will seek his extradition to WA.

Police will allege that these men formed part of an international, well organized crime syndicate responsible for the skimming crimes and theft of significant sums of money from the credit card and bank accounts of West Australians, at automatic teller machines in NSW, Victoria, Canada, Great Britain, USA, India and Malaysia.

Further inquiries are continuing to locate other persons of interest in Australia and overseas.

Ends Release.
Rex Haw
Police Media
22 December 2009

Ziad Chebib is the home-builder. He went on a hunger strike after he was ordered deported. He once had a limousine business in Calgary.

In 2000, he and his family packed up their shit and moved to Australia. Chebib was allowed into the country on business visa, but was unable to make the income to justify the renewal of his visa, and then there were the health problems his wife and one of his son’s developed. That stretched the family budget.

Then he began having problems with the Australia government, getting himself tangled up years of bureaucracy.

While CG isn’t fully aware of all the circumstances surrounding Chebib’s case, he does know that Chebib had big plans of becoming a home-builder, and in fact, he had built one home during the 9 years he has been in Oz, the problem for him was though that his money dried up and his dream didn’t take off. He was forced to move into the home he built and then that is when the shit hit the fan for Chebib and his family.

As far as CG knows, Chebib was put on plane and returned to Canada, though he has yet to verify that, not that he intends to do so.

Visitors to this page can clearly see that this hasn’t been a good month for three Canadians in Australia, but things are looking up for CG.