Ludhiana-born former Canada MP charged with fraud, breach of trust
AS PER POLICE, GREWAL BROKE LAW BY FAILING TO REPORT MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN PERSONAL LOANS THAT HE HAD RECEIVED
TORONTO: A former Indo-Canadian MP, who had suddenly resigned his seat in November 2018, has been charged with multiple charges of breach of trust and fraud by the country’s police after a prolonged investigation.
Rajvinder Singh Grewal, better known as Raj, who originally hails from Ludhiana, had suddenly announced he was quitting his seat of Brampton East in November 2018, citing “personal and medical reasons.” At that time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office issued a statement that Grewal was “undergoing serious personal challenges, and that he is receiving treatment from a health professional related to a gambling problem that led him to incur significant personal debts”.
Now, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP’s national division sensitive and international investigations has laid charges against the former Liberal Party MP on four counts of breach of trust and one count of fraud over $5,000. In a statement, the RCMP alleged that Grewal “failed to report his receipt of millions in personal loans to the ethics commissioner, in circumstances that constitute a criminal breach of trust”. If further alleged that he “solicited loans for his own personal benefit in connection with the use of his public office, and that he administered his government-funded constituency office budget for his own personal benefit, under circumstances which constituted a criminal fraud or breach of trust.”
Even at the time, Grewal first made his announcement, he later said he faced a serious gambling addiction problem. Grewal was among the MPs that formed part of Trudeau’s entourage during his disastrous visit to India in February 2018.
The probe, the RCMP said, began in September 2017 more than a year before Grewal first resigned, after it received “proactive disclosures from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada regarding suspicious transactions involving Grewal during his time in office.”