Hundreds of guns, millions of dollars in federal goods stolen in last fiscal year
OTTAWA – Thieves made off with hundreds of military weapons and accessories as well as dozens of federally issued BlackBerrys, laptops, iPads and USB keys during the last fiscal year.
These revelations and others, including unauthorized use of government-issued credit cards and fraudulent sick-day claims by Canada Revenue Agency employees, are contained in documents presented in the House of Commons Wednesday.
The public account documents are required to be tabled each year and provide a detailed breakdown on the federal government’s finances over the past fiscal year, though they do not provide specifics on individual cases.
For that reason, it’s unclear how or why 484 weapons and accessories were stolen from National Defence in 2012-13, nor what those weapons might be.
In total, thieves bilked National Defence for more than $7 million worth of goods, including more than 4,000 items labelled “transportation equipment,” 7,000 tools, more than 2,500 items listed as “military specific equipment” and 30,000 items described only as “non-military specific equipment.”
Much of this equipment may have at one time been located in shipping containers that were left in Afghanistan in December 2011.
The containers were supposed to be returned to Canada via ship from Pakistan after the last troops left Kandahar at that time, but a dispute between the United States and Pakistan saw the latter close its borders to allied convoys.
It was later discovered that thieves had broken into the containers and replaced what was inside with rocks and sand. The military has never publicly disclosed what was inside the containers.
The documents also show that another 2,147 weapons and accessories were lost by National Defence, most of which was not expected to be recovered.
In addition, more than 200 government-issued BlackBerrys were also lost or stolen during the last year, as well as 10 iPads, more than 250 computers or laptops, and 11 USB keys.
These included an encrypted USB key lost by the Office of the Auditor General and three iPads each from the National Film Board and the federal broadcasting regulator, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
Aside from the actual dollar amount of these losses, there are also potential security implications as any and all of these devices could contain sensitive information that would be of interest to third parties such as foreign governments, companies or criminal organizations.
The federal government revealed in early 2012 that a portable hard drive containing the personal information of 583,000 Canada Student Loan borrowers had been lost by what was then called Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.
That followed revelations HRSDC had also lost a USB drive with the personal information of more than 5,000 Canada Pension Plan disability claimants.
Meanwhile, the government also reported dozens of cases of government-issued American Express credit cards being used, either without authorization or in some cases fraudulently due to identity theft, for travel or to purchase items.
In total, more than $114,000 in unauthorized or fraudulent purchases were made to those cards.
Among some of the other more interesting items that were either stolen or lost from federal departments:
–An investigation into a former National Research Council (NRC) employee’s petty cash, travel and overtime found $72,700 in “irregularities”;
–Two “exhibits” were stolen from the RCMP, valued at $55,848;
–One case of unauthorized use of a BlackBerry valued at $1,208;
–One fraudulent claim for travel costs at the Canada Revenue Agency valued at $20,993;
–Eight fraudulent claims for sick and other leave benefits at CRA valued at $34,939;
–Two cases of a Environment Canada uniform and identification being stolen;
–$12,000 worth of fuel stolen from the Department of Foreign Affairs;
–One $720 chair stolen from the Office of the Co-ordinator at Status of Women;
–Two cases of copper pipes and sheets of brass being stolen from the National Research Council, totalling $4,500;
–The loss of four Environment Canada boats to flooding, worth $5,813;
–Damage to six works of arts held by Foreign Affairs, totalling $2,907;
–The destruction of a Statistics Canada transport trailer to fire, worth $351,580;
–A $24,000 loss of furniture and equipment due to a building collapse in the House of Commons, and another $11,000 due to flooding. This is likely due to renovations currently underway;
–Ninety-five cases of Canada Border Services Agency uniform components being lost;
–Twelve cases of accidental fire at Correctional Service of Canada, totalling $1 million;
–Six cases of Transport Canada inspectors losing their ID cards and badges.