Markham Fraud Defence Lawyer

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Every fraud charge in Markham, from a disputed refund at a Markville checkout to a seven figure investment allegation, is laid under one section of the Criminal Code, s. 380. And every one of them ends up in the same courthouse in Newmarket. What changes from file to file is the dollar line, the paper trail and the exits. This page maps the whole territory: what the Crown must prove, where the $5,000 threshold actually bites, how York Regional Police investigations turn into charges, and which of our focused Markham fraud pages digs into your specific situation.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Serving Markham and York Region. Updated July 2026.

What the Crown actually has to prove in any fraud case

Fraud has one of the shortest definitions in the Criminal Code and one of the widest reaches. Section 380(1) catches anyone who, by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means, defrauds the public or any person of property, money, valuable security or any service. The Supreme Court of Canada has broken that down into two things the Crown must prove happened, plus a mental state it must prove you had.

First, a dishonest act. That can be an outright lie, a false document, or conduct caught by the broader phrase other fraudulent means, which is measured objectively: would a reasonable person call what was done dishonest? The Court confirmed that objective standard in R. v. Zlatic, decided alongside the leading fraud case, R. v. Théroux.

Second, deprivation. Here is what surprises people: the Crown does not need to show that anyone actually lost money. Putting someone's economic interests at risk is enough. Théroux said so plainly. And in R. v. Riesberry, a 2015 appeal arising from fixed horse races, the Court added that nobody needs to have relied on the deception at all, so long as there is a sufficient causal connection between the dishonest act and the risk of loss people were exposed to.

Third, knowledge. The Crown must prove you subjectively knew you were doing the dishonest act and knew it could deprive someone. This is where many real defences live. A sloppy bookkeeper is not a fraudster. Neither is someone who honestly believed they had authority to move the money, even if that belief turns out to be wrong. Intent is also the element investigators have the least paper for, which is exactly why they want to interview you.

The $5,000 fork in the road

Every s. 380 charge splits at a dollar line, and the split is written right on your charging documents: fraud over $5,000 or fraud under $5,000. Over $5,000, or any fraud involving a testamentary instrument such as a will regardless of its value, is a straight indictable offence. Under $5,000 is a hybrid offence, which means the Crown chooses between summary and indictable procedure. That single valuation decision, made before you ever see a courtroom, controls most of what follows.

There is a second dollar line that gets far less attention. Where the Crown proceeds by indictment and the total value of the frauds exceeds one million dollars, s. 380(1.1) requires a minimum sentence of two years in prison. That provision remains in the Code, and it changes the entire complexion of a large file, because it takes discharges, conditional sentences and every other community option off the table.

Value fights matter for the same reasons. Moving an allegation from just over $5,000 to just under it divides the maximum penalty by seven, restores summary procedure and softens the immigration math. So we look hard at how investigators arrived at their number: what was actually put at risk, what the property was genuinely worth, and whether separate incidents were lumped together to push a file across a line. For the province-wide statutory picture, our Ontario fraud defence hub sets out the full framework, and the two Markham value pages mapped below go deep on each branch.

Is this civil or criminal? Where a Markham business dispute crosses the line

A large share of the fraud calls we get from Markham do not start with the police. They start with a business relationship going bad. A partnership behind a numbered company falls apart and one side walks into a police station with a binder. A renovation deposit gets spent while the job stalls. A supplier and a distributor fight over invoices until somebody uses the word fraud. York Region runs on family businesses, contractors and trade, and when money disappears inside those relationships, accusations follow it.

The legal boundary is the anatomy set out above. A broken promise is not a crime. Neither is a debt you cannot pay or a deal that lost money. Fraud requires proof of dishonesty and deprivation judged against how the arrangement really worked, plus your own state of knowledge at the time. Complainant summaries tend to look damning. Full accounting records, emails and industry practice usually tell a messier and more innocent story, and a real part of our fraud practice is persuading the Newmarket Crown, with documents, that a particular file belongs in civil court.

Two cautions if you are living this right now. First, settling the lawsuit does not end the criminal case. The Crown prosecutes in the public interest and does not take direction from complainants. Second, parallel proceedings are a trap: anything you swear in a civil affidavit or say at an examination for discovery can surface in criminal disclosure. Sequencing the two files, and deciding which one speaks first, is defence strategy, not paperwork. Get advice before you respond to any statement of claim that overlaps with a police complaint.

And if what you received is a store's civil demand letter after an incident at a till, that letter is not the criminal file, and paying it does not end a prosecution. Our Markham theft defence page walks through that entire retail pipeline, from the loss prevention office to the Newmarket courthouse.

How a fraud investigation in Markham actually becomes a charge

Fraud files reach York Regional Police through two main doors. The first is a direct report. YRP accepts identity theft and fraud complaints through its online reporting system, which tells victims to contact their banks and card issuers first and to keep every paper and receipt. The second is an institutional package: a bank's internal fraud team, an employer, an insurer or the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre forwards a file that has already been assembled. Either way, the investigation usually arrives with documents attached before anyone calls you.

Markham is policed from YRP's 5 District at 8700 McCowan Road, and the force's Investigative Services, which includes an Organized Crime Bureau and dedicated Cybercrime and Digital Forensics units, carries the records heavy work: production orders for bank and account records, requests to platforms and telecoms, and forensic review of seized devices. The volume behind all this is real. In a March 2026 release, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reported that Canadians lost over 704 million dollars to fraud in 2025, and estimated that only 5 to 10 percent of frauds are ever reported.

Then comes the step that quietly decides many cases: an investigator calls and invites you to come in and give your side. It sounds casual. It is not. That interview typically happens when the file is nearly complete, and its function is to fill the remaining gaps in the Crown's proof of knowledge and intent, the elements that paper alone cannot establish. You have the right to silence, and there is almost never an advantage in giving a statement without advice first.

If charges follow, most people accused of fraud in York Region are released by police on an undertaking or after a prompt bail hearing, with conditions rather than custody, and a first appearance at the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle Street West.

One offence, many files: the Markham fraud family

Fraud rarely travels alone. The Criminal Code carves the surrounding conduct into separate offences, and police routinely stack them on a single charge sheet. Each one has its own elements, its own penalty structure and its own defences, so we built a dedicated Markham page for each.

Fraud over $5,000

The straight indictable branch: a 14 year maximum, preliminary inquiry rights, the million dollar minimum and marathon disclosure. If your paperwork says over, start with our Markham fraud over $5,000 lawyer page, which follows a long, document heavy case stage by stage from investigation to sentence.

Fraud under $5,000

The hybrid branch most first timers face: refund and till allegations, employee expense files, e-transfer disputes. It carries the widest set of exits, including diversion under Ontario's Crown directive, all covered on our Markham fraud under $5,000 lawyer page.

Credit card fraud

Sections 342 and 342.01 cover stolen and cancelled cards, card data and PINs, and skimming equipment. One tap at a terminal can generate several counts. Explained on our Markham credit card fraud lawyer page.

Identity theft and identity fraud

Possessing someone's identity information with intent to use it is one offence. Actually pretending to be them is another, with a different maximum and different immigration exposure. Both are unpacked on our Markham identity theft lawyer page.

Forgery

Making, using or trafficking in a false document is criminal before anyone loses a cent. Our Markham forgery lawyer page follows the document life cycle from creation to courtroom.

When a s. 380 count sits beside these charges, it is usually the value carrying count, the one that turns conduct into a loss number. Resolve the fraud count well and everything stacked around it tends to move with it.

The money conversation: restitution, repayment and what each one changes

Every fraud file has two ledgers, the criminal one and the financial one, and they meet at restitution. Under s. 738 of the Criminal Code, a sentencing court can order repayment up to the replacement value of the property where the amount is readily ascertainable. Section 739.1 adds that your inability to pay does not prevent the order from being made. And under s. 741, whatever goes unpaid can be filed with a civil court and enforced like a judgment, which means a restitution order can follow you for years after the sentence itself is finished.

Handled well, repayment is a defence tool. Money returned early, through counsel, framed as part of a resolution rather than an apology, changes how a Crown reads the file, and it matters enormously at sentencing. Handled badly, it is an admission. A panicked e-transfer to a complainant, or a repayment plan signed in an employer's boardroom, will arrive in disclosure with your signature on it. The same dollars can be either. Never send money or sign anything before getting advice. On lower value files, restitution is often the backbone of a diversion or withdrawal package, and the timing rules are covered on the fraud under $5,000 page.

Fraud also carries a specialized order most people have never heard of. Under s. 380.2, a court can prohibit anyone convicted of fraud from work, paid or volunteer, that involves authority over another person's money, real property or valuable securities. For a bookkeeper, a mortgage agent, a realtor or a property manager in Markham, that order can outlast the sentence itself, and breaching it is a separate offence. We treat s. 380.2 as squarely on the table in every resolution we negotiate for a client whose work touches other people's funds.

If it ends in a sentence: what actually moves the number

Most Markham fraud files never see a sentencing hearing. They resolve earlier, or they collapse. But when one does, Parliament has already told judges what to weigh. Section 380.1 sets out aggravating factors specific to fraud: the magnitude, complexity, duration and degree of planning; any adverse effect on the Canadian economy or on investor confidence; a large number of victims; a significant impact on victims having regard to their personal circumstances, expressly including age, health and financial situation; taking advantage of the high regard in which you were held in the community; failing to comply with a licensing requirement or professional standard; and concealing or destroying records.

Subsection 380.1(2) adds the rule that stings professionals the most: your employment, your skills and your status or reputation cannot count as mitigating if they were relevant to, contributed to or were used in committing the offence. The trusted advisor argument cuts against you, not for you.

On the other side of the ledger, the realistic range for smaller and first time files runs from withdrawal, diversion and discharges through suspended sentences and probation. Since the 2022 amendments to s. 742.1, a conditional sentence served in the community is legally available for fraud, including fraud over $5,000, whenever the fit sentence is under two years and the court is satisfied the community would be safe. The hard exception is the million dollar minimum: where s. 380(1.1) applies, two years is the floor and the community options disappear. Between those poles, what moves the number in practice is scale, breach of trust, restitution and how strong the Crown's proof of knowledge really is.

One building in Newmarket: the court process for every Markham fraud file

Markham has no criminal courthouse of its own. Every adult criminal case in York Region, fraud included, runs through the courthouse at 50 Eagle Street West in Newmarket. Bail happens in that same building, which is a genuine structural difference from Toronto, where bail runs out of 2201 Finch Avenue West while the trial courts sit downtown at 10 Armoury Street. In York Region you deal with one building, one Crown office and one set of local practices from first appearance to verdict.

Fraud is not one of the exceptional offences reserved for a Superior Court bail judge, so release is dealt with quickly at the Ontario Court of Justice, usually on conditions tailored to financial allegations: no contact with complainants, limits on certain dealings or roles, sometimes a surety. After release, the file settles into a rhythm of disclosure, Crown pre-trial meetings and case management appearances, most of which now proceed virtually. A well managed fraud file should not drag you up Highway 404 every few weeks, because counsel can appear for you on most routine dates.

Where the charge is fraud over $5,000, you also elect your trial court. Because the maximum is 14 years, s. 535 preserves a preliminary inquiry on request for those who elect the Superior Court, and both court levels sit in the same Newmarket building, so the geography never changes even when the forum does. Underneath it all runs the constitutional clock from R. v. Jordan: presumptively 18 months to trial in the provincial court and 30 months in the Superior Court, net of delay the defence causes. In document heavy fraud cases, that clock becomes a battleground of its own.

The first appearance itself is administrative, not a trial. Nobody asks how you plead, no evidence is called, and in most fraud files counsel appears by video while you keep working. What actually happens is scheduling: disclosure gets requested or confirmed, the file is traced to the assigned Crown, and the next date is set. People lose sleep over that first date for nothing, and then underestimate the dates that matter later. Part of our job is telling you which is which.

Our Thornhill office at 7191 Yonge Street sits a few minutes from Markham and handles matters at the Newmarket courthouse every week. For the wider picture of how we defend charges across the city, see our Markham criminal defence hub.

The first days after a charge or an investigator's call

What you do in the opening days shapes the file more than anything that happens in a courtroom months later. Some of it is about not helping the prosecution: no statements to police, no explanations to the complainant, no answering the bank's or the employer's investigators while a criminal allegation is in play. People talk because silence feels like guilt. In a fraud file, talk is how intent gets proven.

Some of it is about preserving your own case. Keep every record you have exactly as it is: contracts, emails, texts, invoices, banking exports, even the messy ones. Do not clean up, do not delete, do not close accounts. Deleting material after you know an investigation exists creates a second problem that can be worse than the first, and it hands the Crown the argument that you concealed records, which sentencing law treats as aggravating.

Some of it is about mapping who else touches the story. Write down, privately and for your lawyer only, who had access to the accounts, the terminals, the logins and the approvals involved. Fraud allegations tend to assume the person whose name is on the paperwork is the person who did everything on the paperwork. Access lists are how that assumption gets tested.

And some of it is about your own bandwidth. Conditions, employer meetings, family questions and a court date land at once. A short consultation early, even before charges are laid, usually removes more fear than anything else we do in the whole case, because the unknown is doing most of the damage. The specific playbooks for each charge type are on the pages mapped above; the opening moves are the same for all of them.

Why Markham clients call Kazandji Law for fraud charges

Fraud defence is document work, judgment work and negotiation work, and it rewards senior attention. When you retain Kazandji Law, founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji handles your file personally, from the first police contact through disclosure review, Crown negotiations and, where it comes to that, trial in Newmarket. We defend fraud allegations of every size across Markham, York Region and the GTA, from a single disputed transaction to files built over years of investigation, and our results are set out on our case successes page.

Clients reach us from four offices: Thornhill at 7191 Yonge Street, Suite 310, the closest to Markham; our Toronto headquarters at 180 John Street, Unit 320; North York; and Oakville. Consultations are free and confidential, and we make time quickly, because the earliest moves in a fraud file, before an interview, before a statement, before any repayment, are usually the ones that decide how it ends.

Markham fraud charge FAQ

This page is legal information for people facing fraud allegations in Markham and York Region, it is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Criminal Code provisions summarized here (including ss. 380, 380.1, 380.2, 535, 738, 739.1, 741 and 742.1) were checked against the federal Justice Laws consolidation, and court, police and Crown practice details against Ontario, York Region and York Regional Police sources, as of July 2026. The law, local procedures and Crown practices change, and how any of this applies depends entirely on the facts of your case. For advice about your situation, call 647-588-3234 for a free consultation.