Woman defrauded Air Canada to pay for opioid addiction

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This article was published 22/07/2019 (2282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman is blaming an addiction to opioids for a three-year fraud spree, during which she bilked Air Canada out of more than $2 million.

Chalsee Levreault, 45, pleaded guilty in provincial court Monday to one count of fraud. She remains free on bail and will return to court for sentencing in the fall.

The minimum sentence for fraud exceeding $1 million is two years in prison.

Levreault was arrested in February, and provided a video statement in which she “attributed her offending to a drug addiction, saying she would buy OxyContin, Percocet or morphine by paying dealers cash withdrawn from her (credit) cards,” defence lawyer Carley Mahoney told court, reading from an agreed synopsis of facts.

“She indicated she spent $5,000 to $6,000 a week on drugs.”

Crown attorney Don Melnick said a more detailed submission will be made to court at sentencing, including “the expenditures of fraudulently obtained funds in addition to what was spent on illicit drugs.”

Court heard Levreault, a longtime Air Canada employee, was a finance agent whose responsibilities included processing customer refunds. Her position allowed her access to “sensitive data,” including credit card information.

Between April 2015 and June 2018, on 371 occasions, Levreault created false customer refunds for pre-existing flight passes, and then transferred the refunds to her 17 credit cards.

“The total amount refunded to an individual card varied from as little as $34,733 to as much as $435,347,” Mahoney said.

“She began by taking amounts in the hundreds of dollars and increased it over time to taking thousands of dollars at a time.”

By using fake names for the refunds, “Levreault was able to avoid complaints that could have alerted the company of her conduct,” Mahoney said.

Air Canada discovered the fraud during an audit, which revealed Levreault’s log-in credentials were associated with all of the suspect transactions. Levreault was interviewed by the air carrier’s corporate security division on July 23, 2018, at which time she admitted responsibility.

Levreault said “she got the idea when she learned that refunds weren’t audited,” Mahoney said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca