Surrey Greenhouse Manager Faces $7 Million Lawsuit Over Alleged Fake Invoices
A long-time manager at Burnaby Lake Greenhouses in Surrey has been sued for more than $7 million following allegations that he orchestrated a fraudulent invoicing scheme spanning over a decade. The employee, who had worked at the greenhouse for more than 36 years, abruptly quit earlier this month after the company began questioning suspicious payments.
Details of the Alleged Fraud
According to a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Burnaby Lake Greenhouses alleges that Duane Ingram, the head of its cut flower department, paid a fictitious company called Mac Greenery and More Enterprises a total of $7,174,298.30 over 13 years without receiving any products in return. The company claims Ingram was the sole owner of Mac Greenery, which was discovered to be a shell entity during an internal investigation in January.
The lawsuit states that Mac Greenery was registered as a company on December 17, 2012, with the first invoice issued the very next day. The company was supposedly providing greens and foliage for cut flower bouquets, but Burnaby Lake Greenhouses alleges no products were ever delivered.
How the Scheme Operated
The greenhouse alleges that Ingram would email "prepay invoices" from Mac Greenery every month to the company's chief financial officer and an accounts payable employee. He would request that cheques made payable to Mac Greenery be prepared and given to him directly. Additionally, he would hand deliver extra invoices throughout the month with the same requests for paper cheques.
Ingram allegedly told colleagues he would hand the cheques to Mac Greenery when it dropped off its orders, and later he would sign off to indicate the orders had been delivered. The lawsuit claims the company was formed specifically "for the purpose of misappropriating funds from Burnaby Lake and no products were ever delivered by Mac Greenery."
Discovery and Aftermath
The scheme began to unravel on January 13 when an accounts payable employee had questions about an extra invoice from Mac Greenery. When she spoke to the assistant manager of cut flowers instead of Ingram, the assistant manager said she didn't recognize Mac Greenery as a vendor.
This prompted an investigation that revealed the GST number provided for Mac Greenery wasn't registered with the government and no products had ever been delivered from the company. On January 26, accounts payable emailed Ingram about the unregistered GST number.
The next day, Ingram called in sick, claiming he had a doctor's appointment. He repeated his sick calls over the following two days, saying he was in the hospital and unable to work. He subsequently quit his position at the greenhouse.
Burnaby Lake Greenhouses, a large family-owned wholesaler that sells cut flowers, potted plants, and other greens and foliage, is now seeking to recover the $7 million allegedly misappropriated through this scheme. Ingram had been a manager at the company since 1993 and an employee since 1989.
This case emerges as the second significant fraud allegation to surface in Surrey this year, following a separate incident where the City of Surrey was reportedly defrauded of $2.1 million.
