Crown makes final submissions in multimillion-dollar tax fraud trial unfolding in N.S.

Crown prosecutors say four women charged in a multimillion-dollar tax fraud scheme made repeated attempts to fool the Canada Revenue Agency.

The Cape Breton women Georgette Young, Angela MacDonald, Nadia Saker, and their mother, Lydia Sakerare facing 30 charges, including fraud.

They allhave pleaded not guilty and are representing themselves at the judge-alone trial taking place in Sydney, N.S.

"This isn't an accident, it's continual," prosecutor Mark Donohue said Wednesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Courtas part of the Crown's final submissions.

"This is how money was made over a certain [period] of time."

Auditors flaggedinvoices

The women are alleged to have submitted records on behalf of 10 companies under their control, which show $56 million in sales from products such as cookbooks, salad dressings, wigs, frozen foodand children's fur coats.

After being flagged by auditors over questionable invoices, the women allegedly doubled down on their scheme by submitting fake invoices from businesses that never existed.

A second Crown lawyer, Constantin Draghici-Vasilescu, called it a "predatory scheme."

"We haven't seen this before," hetold Justice Robin Gogan."It is a continuation of the same offence. with the purpose of fooling [an] auditor."

Invoices, sales records faked: CRA

In November 2019, the Canada Revenue Agencycharged the women with $3.6 million in fraud offences related to GST/HST refunds.

The federal agency alleged thescheme escalated in size between 2011 and 2015, and involved a slew of fake invoices, expense reports and sales records.

Some witnesses testified to having only afew business dealings with the women. Many other small business owners said they never heard of the accused or their companies, despite large invoices made out to them.

Gogan asked the Crown on Wednesday what each womanhad knownabout the business dealings.

Individual roles not known, says lawyer

Draghici-Vasilescu said evidence shows the womenacted as a group, having cashed each other's cheques andshared in the profits. However, he said it's notclear what exactrole each woman had in the scheme.

The Canada Revenue Agency has said the women were paid more than $200,000 in tax refunds, but were denied another $3 million after auditors became suspicious.

Draghici-Vasilescu said the women's companies were so intertwinedthat "moneymoves continuously between businesses with absolutely no identifiable connection to economic activity."

One example was that customers'cheques from MacDonald's company, Juliette and John, were being deposited into Young's personal bank account.

The Crown is expected to wrap up its caseThursday, at which time the women will present their closing arguments to the judge.