A Canada Revenue Agency sign in Ottawa is shown on Monday, March 1, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang)
A Winnipeg man has been sentenced after a scheme that saw thousands of dollars fraudulently withdrawn from bank accounts he had no authorization to access.
The Canada Revenue Agency says Mark Revelo was sentenced Wednesday in provincial court to a conditional sentence of 18 months and was fined a total of $41,753.
A CRA investigation found that between February 21, 2022, and April 24, 2023, five fraudulent pre-authorized debit agreements were filed with the CRA in relation to Revelo’s tax accounts. A PAD agreement allows a customer to authorize their bank to automatically withdraw specified amounts at regular intervals.
The CRA said the fraudulent agreements resulted in $41,743 being withdrawn from three bank accounts Revelo neither owned nor had legal authorization to access. Of that amount, $27,650 went toward paying off Revelo’s outstanding tax debts, while $14,093 was issued to him in refund cheques.
The scheme came to light after a local business discovered an unauthorized withdrawal from its bank account that had been directed to the CRA as a payment toward a tax debt. Winnipeg police alerted the CRA, prompting an investigation that uncovered multiple fraudulent transactions involving Revelo’s tax accounts.
In addition to court-imposed fines, the CRA says convicted taxpayers must also pay the full amount of tax owing, plus related interest and any penalties assessed.
