Anti-corruption squad raids Montreal-area construction firms

A week after itraided the home and officesof the mayor of Laval, Quebec's anti-corruption unit has descended on the city a second time, hitting at least six construction companies with search warrants.

About 70 officers with the Unit Permanente Anticorruption, or UPAC,began their latestraids before 7 a.m. in the suburban municipality just north of Montreal.

UPAC said it was targetingfirms related to Quebecconstruction boss Tony Accurso, who is already facing a dozen criminal charges related topossibletax fraudas well asbribery in connection with municipal contracts. Accurso's companies Simard-Beaudry Construction and Louisbourg Constructionwere raided for thesecond time in eight days.

Anotherpair of firms thatwere searched Thursdayare Nepcon Inc. and Mergad Construction,part of a conglomerate owned byLaval's prominentMergl family. Nepcon filed for bankruptcy protection in January, citing more than $4 million in debts, including more than $70,000 owed to Simard-Beaudry.

A thirdtargeted business, Poly Excavation, co-owns a real-estate company that used to count Laval Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt as one of its shareholders. Vaillancourt, who has beenmayor since 1989,says he sold his interest in 2001.

There's another link between Poly Excavation, asewer and water-mainfirm owned by the Lefranois family,and the mayor: Until April, Micheline Lefranoishad a Miami-area condo around the corner from an apartment owned by Vaillancourt's wife.

Accurso's firms, Nepcon and Poly Excavation are among eight companies thatwere awardedthe lion's share of Laval's infrastructure and road work contracts between 2001 and 2008. It is believed investigators are looking into thebidding process forthose dealsand trying to determine whetherit was rigged in the same way thata former construction mogul has testifiedthat it was in Montreal.

Plainclothes and uniformedofficers conducting the raidscarried away boxes of files and took pictures of the sites.

Staff who answered the phone at Poly Excavation said the company is not talking to the media and curtly hung up. No one answered calls at Nepcon.