Ontario man guilty of allergy testing fraud in U.S. was key employee of DNA lab in paternity controversy
An Ontario man currently in a U.S. jail awaiting sen‐ tencing for running a fraudulent allergy testing company was also a key employee in a Canadian
DNA laboratory that a CBC News investigation found has a history of producing wrong paternity results.
Kyle Tsui, 41, pleaded guilty in January to mail and wire fraud before the U.S. Federal Court for the
Southern District of New York.
Arrested in Spain and ex‐ tradited last November to the U.S., Tsui made millions of dollars offering allergy testing through hair samples that he ultimately tossed in the garbage without analyz‐ ing, court records show. His company was called The Al‐ lergy Testing Company.
The criminal investigation, led by the U.S. Postal Inspec‐ tion Service, focused on a pe‐ riod between September 2018 and April 2019. During that time, Tsui worked as a senior manager for Torontobased Viaguard Accu-Metrics, according to internal records from the DNA laboratory ob‐ tained by CBC News.
A CBC News investigation recently uncovered a yearslong pattern of erroneous re‐ sults by Viaguard's non-inva‐ sive prenatal paternity testing. Viaguard also used different online companies, under names such as Pre‐ natal Paternities Inc. and Pa‐ ternity Depot, to sell the testing service it offered.
The laboratory sold the tests from about 2010 until 2021.
CBC News interviewed several former Viaguard em‐ ployees and dozens of its customers from across Cana‐ da, the U.S., the U.K. and Aus‐ tralia. The laboratory provided wrong prenatal pa‐ ternity test results in each of their cases.
Harvey Tenenbaum, Via‐ guard's owner, recently told a CBC News producer posing as a potential customer that he knew the laboratory's pre‐ natal paternity tests couldn't be trusted.
Responsible for Vi‐ aguard sample collec‐ tion
A Viaguard employee flow‐ chart, created in September 2018 and updated in Novem‐
ber 2018, listed Tsui under the title "quality manager." He reported directly to Tenenbaum, according to the document, which was ob‐ tained by CBC News.
The chart shows Tsui was responsible for overseeing employees handling sample collection from Viaguard cus‐ tomers.
WATCH | Viaguard cus‐ tomers swap stories of con‐ flicting paternity tests:
The chart was part of a Canadian Federal Court case filed by Viaguard against the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). Viaguard tried and failed to reverse the SCC's 2017 decision to strip the lab‐ oratory of its accreditation over unauthorized use of the federal agency's logo.
Tenenbaum, who still owns and runs Viaguard, said in an emailed statement to CBC that his laboratory "had no involvement" with any of Tsui's activities that gave rise to the "legal proceedings."
He would not say when Tsui left his employ.
"Mr. Tsui's privacy rights preclude me from com‐ menting on any matter con‐ cerning his past employment with Viaguard," said Tenen‐ baum in the statement.
It appears that Tsui worked for Viaguard from as early as 2014 until at least 2020.
Tried to recruit for Six‐ ties Scoop lawsuit
Tsui appeared on television representing Viaguard in 2014 when news emerged that the laboratory had found a genetic link between former prime minister John Diefenbaker and George Dry‐ den, his suspected illegiti‐ mate son.
Dryden died in 2016. CBC News found no evidence to cast doubt on those DNA test results.
The CBC News investiga‐ tion found that Viaguard knowingly sold prenatal pa‐ ternity testing services that could not be trusted to pro‐ vide accurate results.
Corale Mayer, 22, con‐ ducted two prenatal pater‐ nity tests with Viaguard in 2020. One test identified the wrong biological father and the other ruled out the actual dad.
She provided a 2020 phone recording involving Tsui to CBC News. On the recording, Tsui agreed to re‐ fund the $800 cost of the wrong test to Mayer.
CBC News previously re‐ ported on Tsui's involvement with Tenenbaum in attempts between 2016 and 2017 to recruit victims of the Moth‐ erisk Drug Testing Laboratory scandal at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and First Nations victims of the Sixties
Scoop for class-action law‐ suits. Neither of the lawsuits ever came to fruition.
Moved millions to Cana‐ dian bank account
The U.S. criminal investiga‐ tion found that while em‐ ployed with Viaguard, Tsui reaped millions of dollars in profit running the Allergy Testing Company, which cor‐ porate and property records show was headquartered at a family home owned by Tsui.
U.S. authorities say Tsui made about $5.9 million US in sales over eight months by defrauding at least 88,000 people.
Tsui rented a mailbox at an outlet in Hyde Park, N.Y., where his online company re‐ ceived 4,500 pieces of mail weekly, containing mostly hair samples, between Sep‐ tember 2018 and February 2019.
The price of his tests ranged from $26 to $79 US.
"The samples were … dis‐ carded at my direction and false test results were provided to customers," said Tsui, according to a transcript of his Jan. 23 plea hearing be‐ fore Justice Judith McCarthy.
Tsui moved $3.6 million from a U.S. bank account to a Canadian bank account via wire transfer in March 2019, shortly after he was con‐ tacted by the U.S. Postal In‐ spection Service.
"Mr. Tsui deeply regrets his criminal conduct and is in the process of doing as much as he can to rectify his ac‐ tions, including paying full restitution to his victims be‐ fore his sentencing," said his New York City lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman.
Tsui has agreed to pay $3.6 million US, court records show. He's scheduled for sentencing in May.