Former Ontario Government Employee Sentenced to 10 Years for $47 Million Fraud Scheme

Sanjay Madan, a former IT director at the Ontario Ministry of Education, was sentenced to ten years in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding the Ontario government of more than $47 million. Madan was charged with fraud, breach of trust, and money laundering on multiple counts.

Madan admitted to overseeing two complex schemes to defraud taxpayers of millions of dollars, admitting that he “abused his position to defraud the Ontario government.” He has accepted responsibility for his crimes and expressed regret.

Madan agreed to repay the entire $47 million as part of his guilty plea. According to his lawyers, $30 million has already been returned to the Ontario government, with the remainder repayable over the next 15 years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government established the Support for Students Fund, which provided parents with a one-time payment of $200 per child to offset the costs of learning from home during the pandemic. Madan, who had access to the internal processing portal, diverted over 43,000 support payments into 2,841 bank accounts in his name, syphoning off $10.8 million from the fund.

The investigation into the pandemic funds fraud uncovered a larger nine-year scheme in which Madan made $36.6 million in profits. In 2011, he set up a complex fee-for-service consultancy fraud in which contracts were awarded to “dummy” consultants while millions of dollars in taxpayer money was funnelled into Madan’s bank accounts.

While the money was transferred into accounts in the names of Madan’s wife, two sons, and other family members, his guilty plea was intended to signal that he was solely responsible for the theft.

“He used the names of his wife and two sons, but they’ve been implicated in news reports, and he wants to make it clear that it was just him and him,” Madan’s lawyer explained.

Madan apologised for his crimes to taxpayers, the Ontario government, his family, and colleagues.

Prabhnoor Kaur