Surge in reports of wrongdoing to Quebec anti-corruption police

MONTREAL – Quebec anti-corruption police are reporting a surge of nearly 30 per cent in the number of reports of wrongdoing they received in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

The police force, known as UPAC, says in its annual report it received nearly 575 reports, up from 450 the previous year, involving allegations of such crimes as corruption, breach of trust, fraud or the misuse of public funds.

UPAC Commissioner Vincent Richer said the unit is contending with corruption schemes that are increasingly complex. 

“The time when everyone knew what was going on and money was being exchanged is over,” he told a news conference. “The schemes of corruption and fraud are now carried out by a small group of people,” said Richer, who urged the public to report wrongdoing.

Anti-corruption police say that nearly a quarter of reports came from the public sector, up from two or three per cent in the first years after the unit was created in 2011.

UPAC said its work led to 134 people or legal entities being charged in the past fiscal year, 138 convictions and more that $760,000 in fines issued.

Examples of successful investigations involve a former university professor convicted of producing false documents and a former municipal director general who admitted to defrauding her town of more than $300,000. “For a small municipality of 500 people, that’s a colossal sum,” Richer said.

In another investigation, an entrepreneur in the Beauce region was found guilty of a $1-million scheme to fraudulently obtain home demolition contracts after flooding in 2019. And in Montreal, six people were charged with allegedly having issued more than 2,000 fraudulent drivers’ licences, Richer said.

UPAC leadership warned of the increasing prevalence of so-called “false representatives” schemes. These can involve fraudsters, who are often located outside the province or country, who call the accounts payable department of big organizations and tell staff there’s a new bank account for receiving funds.

“There are actions that have been taken by certain departments to pay government bills into the account of those bandits, those criminals,” Insp. Maxime Tremblay told the news conference.

The report noted that following its investigations, 122 people and legal entities had been convicted of penal offences in 2024-2025, down from 265 the previous year. UPAC says the drop is due to a decline in the number of people convicted for producing false vaccination records, a crime that surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.