The police still have “at least” until June to complete their Portier Project on the massive data theft that occurred at Desjardins. Investigators will have been working on the largest information leak in Quebec for more than five years. Documents made public also reveal that a parallel investigation into identity thefts carried out with stolen personal information is underway.
“I am of the opinion that it will take me at least 12 months to complete all my obligations in order to complete the investigation,” stated Sergeant Catherine Gohier of the Sûreté du Québec last June, in a request recently made public to be able to keep seized property.
The police would therefore still have it until next summer.
On December 5, Judge Mélanie Hébert of the Court of Quebec allowed the police to keep their potential evidence until August.
Other documents made public also reveal that a “sub-investigation” is progressing in parallel with Portier: “Project D”. It concerns identity fraud carried out using information stolen from the Movement, between 2016 and 2019.
The lead investigator on this case, Kathleen Floyd, requested and received permission to preserve potential evidence seized in 2021 as part of this operation until July.
According to court records, Bacha, 25, is to be tried in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield on charges of unauthorized use of a computer and credit card, identity theft, use of false documents and forgery. These offenses allegedly occurred in 2019 and 2020.
The denunciation does not specify whether the matter is linked to Desjardins data and his lawyer Ramy El-Turaby did not call La Presse to clarify this matter.
In total, the main investigation, Portier, targets 11 people and 14 companies. Nine SQ police officers are working to bring the project to fruition. They met 107 witnesses, including around twenty Desjardins employees.
Among the suspects are eight brokers, ex-brokers and private lenders from the Quebec and Montmagny regions, including Charles Bernier, Mathieu Joncas and François Baillargeon-Bouchard. They are suspected of having bought stolen data to resell it or “obtain a competitive advantage”, according to police statements filed in this case.
Among the suspects is also a certain Patrick Richard. For the first time, a less redacted version of a police statement reveals that this broker also “appropriated Desjardins customer lists” to “have a competitive advantage”.
The information made public confirms the central role played by Juan Pablo Serrano and his roommate Maxime Paquette in the dissemination of the stolen data. The SQ conducted a successful search in their apartment on Terry-Fox Avenue in Laval in September 2019, with “dynamic entry” (the police broke down the door).
According to investigators, Serrano was one of the first to buy stolen data from Jean-Loup Leullier-Masse. This private lender allegedly acquired them from former Desjardins employee Sébastien Boulanger-Dorval, suspect number one.
According to the SQ statement, Serrano and Paquette had a file at home containing 3.85 million profiles of Movement members.
“Serrano sells lists of personal data from Desjardins to different subjects involved in the fraud,” said the investigator in the Portier file last June.
Devices seized from Serrano allegedly contained tracking notes on 61 people who were victims of bank fraud and data theft, forwarding addresses to have fraudulent cards delivered and fake IDs.
The documents also mention an “alliance” between Serrano and an individual whose name is redacted, as well as “their discussions regarding Desjardins data.”
Contacted through his Telegram account, Serrano made no comment.
As for his roommate Maxime Paquette, mentioned both in the Portier investigation into data theft and in Project D on identity theft, the SQ noted in another statement that he “has a history of violence and of offensive weapons”.
Contacted by La Presse, his lawyer François Létourneau-Prézeau assures that he does not know what the police are referring to, adding that his client has neither “been declared guilty” nor “pleaded guilty to an event of violence”.
Paquette’s lawyer recalls that his client “is presumed innocent.” “The case has been under investigation for years, no charges in these cases have been laid to date and we do not know if there will be any. »
