Toronto Fraud Over $5,000 Lawyers

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In Canadian fraud law, two dollar figures decide almost everything. Cross $5,000 and the charge becomes a straight indictable offence with a 14-year maximum, no summary option, but with a preliminary inquiry available and serious immigration consequences built in. Cross $1,000,000 and a two-year mandatory minimum enters the picture. If you are charged with fraud over $5,000 in Toronto, understanding how those thresholds, the breach-of-trust sentencing rules and the restitution machinery interact is the foundation of your defence. Kazandji Law defends complex fraud prosecutions across Toronto and the GTA.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

The Two Dollar Thresholds That Drive Everything

Section 380(1) of the Criminal Code defines fraud in sweeping terms: depriving the public or any person of property, money, valuable security or any service by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means. But the section then splits into two branches, and the split is worth more attention than any other feature of the charge.

Under s. 380(1)(a), where the value of the subject-matter exceeds $5,000, or where the subject-matter is a testamentary instrument such as a will, whatever its value, the offence is straight indictable with a maximum of 14 years. There is no summary conviction option, no matter how sympathetic the facts. Under s. 380(1)(b), fraud not exceeding $5,000 is a hybrid offence with a two-year maximum on indictment. That difference cascades through the whole case: the 14-year maximum preserves the right to request a preliminary inquiry, changes the realistic sentencing range, and automatically engages the serious-criminality provisions of immigration law. If your alleged amount sits near the line, valuation itself becomes a battleground, and a charge renegotiated down to fraud under $5,000 is a categorically different legal event.

The second threshold appears in s. 380(1.1). When a person is prosecuted on indictment and convicted of one or more s. 380(1) offences, the court must impose a minimum sentence of two years of imprisonment if the total value of the subject-matter of the offences exceeds $1,000,000. Note the word “total”: the minimum aggregates across counts, so ten frauds of $150,000 each engage it just as one $1.1-million fraud does. This minimum remains in the Code on the current consolidation, the 2022 sentencing reforms in Bill C-5 did not amend s. 380, and because it is a mandatory minimum, it also forecloses a conditional sentence where it applies, as explained below.

Section 380(2) adds a specialized branch: affecting the public market price of stocks, shares or merchandise with intent to defraud, also a 14-year indictable offence, which is how market-manipulation allegations are charged.

Allegation	Provision	Procedure	Sentencing exposure
Fraud not exceeding $5,000	s. 380(1)(b)	Hybrid. Crown may proceed summarily or by indictment	Max 2 years (indictment) or summary penalty; no minimum
Fraud over $5,000 (or any testamentary instrument)	s. 380(1)(a)	Straight indictable; preliminary inquiry available on request	Max 14 years; no minimum below $1M total value
Fraud(s) totalling over $1,000,000, prosecuted on indictment	s. 380(1.1)	Straight indictable	Max 14 years; mandatory minimum 2 years; conditional sentence unavailable
Affecting public market prices with intent to defraud	s. 380(2)	Indictable	Max 14 years

What the Crown Must Prove in a Fraud Prosecution

The legal architecture of fraud was set by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Théroux, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 5, and its companion case R. v. Zlatic, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 29, and refined in R. v. Riesberry, 2015 SCC 65. Together they define both what the Crown must establish and why several intuitive defences fail.

The prohibited act has two components. First, a dishonest act: deceit, a falsehood, or “other fraudulent means.” The first two categories are what they sound like, lies and misrepresentations. The third is broader: under Zlatic, conduct counts as other fraudulent means where a reasonable person would characterize it as dishonest, judged objectively. In Zlatic itself, diverting funds from a business, money effectively owed to trade creditors, into gambling was fraud even without a specific lie. Second, deprivation caused by that act. Deprivation does not require anyone to end up out of pocket: it includes actual loss and the mere placing of the victim’s financial interests at risk. An investor whose money was exposed to unauthorized risk has been deprived in law even if the money later came back.

The mental element is subjective but modest: the Crown must prove you knowingly undertook the dishonest act and knew it could result in deprivation, including knowledge that others’ financial interests were being put at risk. Recklessness about that consequence suffices. Critically, Théroux holds that hoping or even sincerely believing the victims would ultimately suffer no loss, the classic “I always intended to pay it back” position, is not a defence where you knowingly put their money at risk in the meantime.

Riesberry closed another door. In that case, a licensed trainer drugging racehorses while the public bet more than $5,000 on the races, the Supreme Court confirmed that fraud does not require proof that any victim relied on the deception, nor a completed economic loss. What is required in every case is a sufficient causal connection between the dishonest act and the victims’ deprivation or risk of deprivation. The betting public’s exposure to a rigged race was enough.

Where the Real Defences Live

Because the elements are so broad, effective fraud defence is rarely about denying that money moved. It is about attacking the specific components the Crown must prove:

• Honest belief in entitlement. A genuine belief that you had a legal right to the property or the transaction, a claim of right, negates the dishonesty at the core of the offence. Business disputes over commissions, draws, loans and shareholder accounts frequently belong in civil court, not criminal court, and framing them that way early can end a prosecution.
• No objective dishonesty. Aggressive, sloppy or even ruinous business conduct is not automatically “other fraudulent means.” The Zlatic standard asks what a reasonable person would call dishonest, and risky decisions made openly, with disclosure, are defensible.
• Causation gaps. Riesberry demands a sufficient causal connection between the dishonest act and the deprivation. Where losses flowed from market forces, third-party decisions or the complainant’s own choices, that link can fail.
• No subjective knowledge. In multi-actor schemes, payroll clerks, spouses on joint accounts, salespeople repeating a script written upstairs, the person charged often lacked knowledge that anything dishonest was occurring. Fraud has no negligence version; honest ignorance is an answer.
• Quantum and valuation. The $5,000 and $1,000,000 lines make valuation legal terrain. Contesting the Crown’s aggregation of counts, gross-versus-net loss theory, or valuation date can move a case below a threshold and transform the exposure.
• Charter and disclosure litigation. Production orders, search warrants for offices and devices, and CRA or bank-initiated investigations all raise s. 8 issues, and document-heavy files create real delay arguments, discussed below with R. v. Jordan.

Breach of Trust: The Sentencing Engine

If the threshold sets the frame, s. 380.1 supplies the engine that drives fraud sentences upward. For offences under ss. 380, 382, 382.1 and 400, the court is required to treat a statutory list of circumstances as aggravating:

• the magnitude, complexity, duration or degree of planning of the fraud was significant;
• the offence adversely affected, or could have affected, the stability of the Canadian economy, financial system or markets, or investor confidence;
• the offence involved a large number of victims;
• the offence had a significant impact on victims given their personal circumstances, including age, health and financial situation;
• the offender took advantage of the high regard in which they were held in the community;
• the offender failed to comply with a licensing requirement or professional standard; and
• the offender concealed or destroyed records related to the fraud or to the disbursement of its proceeds.

Section 380.1(2) then removes a mitigation many first-time accused assume will help them: the court shall not consider your employment, employment skills, status or reputation in the community as mitigating factors if they were relevant to, contributed to, or were used in committing the offence. The trusted bookkeeper, the respected advisor, the community leader, the very standing that made the alleged fraud possible cannot soften the sentence. Section 380.1(3) requires the judge to state on the record which aggravating and mitigating circumstances were considered.

These provisions explain the fact patterns that dominate Toronto courtrooms: employees with signing authority, bookkeepers and controllers, attorneys under powers of attorney managing elderly relatives’ finances, and investment or renovation schemes marketed through community and faith networks. In each, the breach-of-trust overlay, not just the dollar figure, sets the sentencing stakes, and the defence response has to engage with it head on: contextualizing the relationship, contesting the loss calculation, and demonstrating rehabilitation and repayment.

The Money-Back Architecture: Restitution, Prohibition Orders and Forfeiture

Fraud files in Toronto are as much about money recovery as punishment, and the Code builds a full machinery for it.

Restitution. Under s. 738(1)(a), the court may order restitution up to the replacement value of property lost, damaged or destroyed, where the amount is readily ascertainable, on the Crown’s application or its own motion; s. 738(1)(b) adds pecuniary damages, including lost income, flowing from bodily or psychological harm. Section 739 protects innocent third parties who bought or lent against crime-derived property. Two enforcement rules give these orders teeth: s. 739.1 provides that the offender’s financial means or ability to pay does not prevent the court from making the order, and s. 741 allows any unpaid amount to be entered as a civil judgment enforceable in the civil courts, and even directs that money found on you at arrest can be applied to payment. A restitution order therefore survives bankruptcy of the criminal file’s conclusion and follows you as a judgment debtor. (The former fraud-specific provision requiring courts to consider restitution, s. 380.3, was repealed in 2015 when the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights created the current general scheme, sites still citing it are out of date.)

Community impact. Under s. 722.2, the court must consider a community impact statement describing the harm or loss suffered by a community, a provision with real force in affinity-fraud sentencings where an entire congregation or cultural community invested.

Employment prohibition. Section 380.2 authorizes the court, on conviction or discharge for s. 380(1) fraud, to prohibit you from seeking, obtaining or continuing any employment, or any volunteer position, that involves authority over the real property, money or valuable security of another person, for any period it considers appropriate, including while imprisoned. Breaching the order is itself an offence. For accountants, advisors, realtors and treasurers, this order can end a career, and resisting or narrowing it is a distinct sentencing project.

Asset restraint and forfeiture. The Toronto Police Financial Crimes unit includes a dedicated Asset Forfeiture Section pursuing proceeds-of-crime and money-laundering theories, with restraint of real estate, accounts and vehicles. Early defence attention to restrained assets, and to how voluntary repayment is timed and characterized, shapes both the Crown’s position and the ultimate sentence.

Sentencing and the Bill C-5 Reality

Sentencing for large frauds is dominated by denunciation and general deterrence, and the s. 380.1 factors push serious breach-of-trust cases toward custody. But 2022 changed the legal landscape in a way many summaries still miss. Bill C-5 (S.C. 2022, c. 15) repealed paragraphs 742.1(e) and (f) of the Code, the provisions that had barred conditional sentences for offences, like fraud over $5,000, carrying 14-year maximums. Under the current s. 742.1, a conditional sentence, jail served in the community under strict conditions, often called house arrest, is legally available where the fit sentence is less than two years, community safety is not endangered, and the sentence is consistent with the fundamental principles of sentencing.

The exception proves the thresholds’ power: s. 742.1(b) still bars conditional sentences for any offence with a mandatory minimum. So where the s. 380(1.1) million-dollar minimum applies, a conditional sentence is off the table entirely; below that line, it is a live option that competent counsel builds the sentencing case around, restitution first, structured community proposals, treatment and employment plans. The gap between two years less a day in the community and two years in a penitentiary is, for most clients, the whole case.

The Pre-Charge Window: When You Are Under Investigation

Unlike street-level offences, fraud over $5,000 charges rarely arrive without warning. Most Toronto files begin somewhere else entirely: a bank’s internal investigation flags transactions and files a report; an employer’s auditors find irregularities and call their lawyers; a business partner starts a civil lawsuit and forwards the pleadings to police; a securities or insurance regulator opens an inquiry that later migrates to the Financial Crimes unit. There is usually a window, weeks or months, between the first sign of trouble and the laying of an information. What happens in that window often decides the case.

Three principles govern it. First, you are under no obligation to explain yourself to investigators, corporate security, forensic accountants or police. Requests for “a quick meeting to clear things up” are evidence-gathering exercises, and statements made without advice routinely become the backbone of the Crown’s mens rea case. The right to silence exists precisely for this moment; using it is not an admission of anything. Second, do not touch the records. Deleting emails, amending ledgers or moving funds after you learn of an investigation converts a defensible file into an aggravated one, recall that s. 380.1(1)(f) makes concealment or destruction of records a statutory aggravating factor, and separate obstruction charges are possible. Preserve everything, and let counsel control what is produced, when, and under what legal compulsion. Third, get ahead of the narrative. In the pre-charge window, defence counsel can sometimes present exculpatory records or a claim-of-right analysis to investigators or the Crown before charges crystallize, steer an allegation back into the civil arena where it belongs, or, where charges are inevitable, arrange a dignified surrender that avoids a workplace arrest and positions the bail hearing favourably.

If you have received a call from a detective, a bank investigator or an employer’s lawyer about missing funds, the time to involve criminal counsel is now, not after the first court date.

The Toronto Process for a 14-Year Offence

Fraud is not listed in s. 469 of the Code, so bail stays in the Ontario Court of Justice: if police do not release you on an undertaking, your hearing happens at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre, 2201 Finch Ave. W., which handles all Toronto adult bail including weekends and holidays. Release with conditions, no-contact terms, bans on financial or fiduciary activity, sometimes a surety, is the norm for most first-time accused, but the conditions themselves deserve a fight, since a broad financial-activity ban can shut down your livelihood before trial. Our Toronto bail lawyers page explains the process in detail.

Because fraud over $5,000 carries a 14-year maximum, it is one of the relatively few non-violent offences for which a preliminary inquiry remains available: under s. 535, as amended in 2019, prelims exist for indictable offences punishable by 14 years or more, on request under s. 536(4) after an election for Superior Court trial. A prelim at the Ontario Court of Justice, 10 Armoury St.. Toronto’s consolidated criminal courthouse, lets the defence test the Crown’s witnesses and paper trail before committal to the Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Ave., where jury and judge-alone trials are held. Whether to use the prelim or move straight to trial is a strategic decision about discovery value versus delay.

Delay itself is governed by R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27: presumptive ceilings of 18 months for cases tried in the provincial court and 30 months for cases in the superior court (or provincial court cases tried after a preliminary inquiry), net of defence-caused delay. Above the ceiling, the burden shifts to the Crown to justify the time through exceptional circumstances, discrete events or “particularly complex” cases. Document-heavy fraud prosecutions, with terabytes of banking records and multi-year investigations, are precisely where the complexity fight happens, and disciplined defence scheduling turns slow Crown disclosure into a s. 11(b) remedy: a stay of proceedings.

Who Investigates Fraud Over $5,000 in Toronto

Most Toronto files begin with the Toronto Police Service Financial Crimes unit, which sits under Specialized Operations Command, Detective Operations, within Organized Crime Enforcement, and investigates frauds occurring in or connected to the city. Its Corporate Section handles securities and stock-market matters, real-estate and mortgage fraud, insurance and investment fraud, and large-scale frauds on the public; its Mass Marketing Section is the lead agency of the Toronto Strategic Partnership, a joint initiative with the OPP, RCMP, Competition Bureau, the Ontario Ministry of Finance, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Canada Post Security; and its Asset Forfeiture Section pursues proceeds and money-laundering angles. The unit is based at 40 College St. (416-808-7300). The reporting rules mirror the charge threshold: TPS directs the public to report frauds under $5,000 online and frauds over $5,000 by phone at 416-808-2222.

Nationally, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, jointly managed by the RCMP, the Competition Bureau and the OPP, collects fraud and identity theft reports and feeds intelligence to local investigators. Its March 2026 release reported that Canadians lost over $704 million to fraud in 2025, that reported losses since 2022 exceed $2.4 billion, that only an estimated 5 to 10 per cent of frauds are reported, and that the top three fraud types by financial impact in 2025 were investment fraud, romance fraud and job fraud. Those categories map directly onto the prosecutions moving through Toronto courtrooms.

One structural note: fraud is listed in s. 402.2(3) as a target offence for identity theft, so synthetic-identity schemes are routinely charged as identity theft and fraud together. If your file pairs s. 380 counts with identity allegations, see our Toronto identity theft lawyers page, the two bodies of law interlock, and so should the defence.

Collateral Consequences: Immigration, Licences, Livelihood

For anyone who is not a Canadian citizen, fraud over $5,000 carries a consequence that operates independently of the sentence. Under s. 36(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a conviction for an offence punishable by a maximum term of at least 10 years constitutes serious criminality for permanent residents and foreign nationals, and because fraud over $5,000 carries a 14-year maximum, every conviction qualifies regardless of the sentence imposed. Even a discharge-adjacent outcome on the criminal side can therefore have removal consequences on the immigration side, and the sequencing of pleas, findings and sentencing must be planned with immigration counsel from the start.

Professional consequences run on parallel tracks. Regulated professionals, lawyers, accountants, mortgage brokers, real-estate agents, securities registrants, health professionals, face discipline proceedings that use lower standards of proof than criminal court, and a s. 380.2 prohibition order can bar employment involving authority over others’ money or property altogether. Insurance, bonding and banking relationships rarely survive a fraud conviction. These are not afterthoughts; they are why the definition of success in a fraud file is often a resolution that avoids a conviction for an offence of dishonesty at all, through withdrawal, acquittal, or resolution to a different charge.

Why Kazandji Law for a Toronto Fraud Over $5,000 Charge

Kazandji Law defends fraud, theft and breach-of-trust prosecutions across the GTA from four offices, headquartered at 180 John St., Unit 320, in downtown Toronto, minutes from both the 10 Armoury St. courthouse and the Superior Court at 361 University Ave. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji approaches every fraud file the same way:

• Master the paper before the Crown does. Fraud cases are won in the documents, ledgers, wires, emails, valuations. We build our own transaction map instead of accepting the investigator’s.
• Attack the elements, not the optics. Dishonesty, deprivation, causation and knowledge each get a targeted challenge; thresholds and quantum are contested, not conceded.
• Run the delay clock. Jordan ceilings are enforced from the first appearance, with a disciplined record that keeps defence delay off our side of the ledger.
• Plan the endgame early. Restitution strategy, conditional-sentence eligibility, immigration and licensing consequences are engineered from day one, not discovered at sentencing.

Read about the firm’s work in fraud and financial prosecutions on our case results page, or explore the full criminal defence practice. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; disciplined preparation is the constant.

This page provides general legal information about fraud over $5,000 charges in Toronto, Ontario. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Criminal Code references reflect the Justice Laws consolidation last amended March 26, 2026, and case law as of the July 2026 update; the law can change. If you are facing charges, contact Kazandji Law at (647) 588-3234 for advice about your specific situation. Kazandji Law, 180 John St., Unit 320, Toronto, ON M5T 1X5.