Surrey mayor claims public deposits safe despite alleged $2.5-million fraud
Mayor Brenda Locke claims husband of woman suspected of defrauding city no longer works for Surrey
Surrey's mayor insisted Friday that developers and members of the public can have confidence in the city's financial safeguards despite revelations that a former city finance clerk allegedly defrauded taxpayers of more than $2.5 million.
A day after CBC News revealed the existence of a police investigation into the missing funds, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke told On the Coast host Gloria Macarenko that the alleged fraud was caught because of city staff.
"There was irregularities that have to be addressed and that's exactly what the city is doing. And I think that members of the public should know that. They should know that the process is working exactly as it should," Locke said.
"We are very, very concerned and that's why we put all these processes in place so we could make sure that the public purse is managed with care."
'An avid gambler'
The mayor's comments follow news that Surrey police and RCMP have been investigating a former city finance clerk who resigned in January 2024 after being challenged about an allegedly forged signature on a cheque.
CBC is not naming the woman, who has not been charged with any crime.
The woman — who had worked for the city for 20 years — allegedly manipulated the system the city uses to take deposits from developers to funnel money to accounts set up in her former legal name, her mother's name and the name of her boutique cake baking business.
The money allegedly came from a set of accounts containing deposits left with the city as far back as 40 years ago. The woman is accused of changing the names and addresses of payees.
According to a search warrant obtained by CBC, the woman's supervisors followed her unique electronic signature to find 183 cheques from those accounts totalling more than $2.5 million, written between 2017 and 2024 — the bulk of which were made out to her business.
"It was common knowledge in the office that [the woman] also had a cake baking business on the side," the search warrant says.
"It was also well known that she was an avid gambler. [She] would often talk about the experiences she had."
Husband no longer works for city
According to court documents obtained by CBC, the city sued the woman and her mother in February 2024, but the details of the lawsuit didn't make it into the public domain because the notice of civil claim was sealed.
The woman's response, however, is publicly available.
"[She] expressly denies the allegations of fraud, conversion, conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duty as alleged," the court document reads.
The woman's mother also filed a response denying wrongdoing and claiming she "handed over her bank cards" to her daughter three weeks after opening the CIBC bank account where the funds were allegedly transferred.
She claimed she was not aware that her daughter had not closed her bank accounts.
"At all times, [the mother] was not aware that [the daughter] had transferred some of the misappropriated funds into the CIBC accounts," the mother claimed.
In her interview with CBC, Locke confirmed that the woman's husband — who was also a City of Surrey employee — is no longer employed by the city.
According to city records, the man earned nearly $110,000 in 2022.
Locke said there were no longer any employees that had any "touch points" to the investigation.
"I'm not aware of the circumstances to why this person left his employment here," she said.
Files deleted after suspension?
The search warrant also raises questions about the woman's access to computer files following her departure.
According to the search warrant, after she was suspended, the woman's manager "happened to look down the hallway and noted that [the woman] and her husband, who also worked for the city, were both at [her] desk."
The manager "did not think much of it other than he suspected she probably had been with the union representative for some time after the meeting," the search warrant says.
The following day, the same manager noted that six files related to cheques written out to the woman had been deleted sometime "between 5:20 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. the day prior."
"It was roughly the same time that [he] observed [the woman] at her desk after the meeting when she had been suspended," the search warrant says.
The files were later restored.
None of the allegations against the woman or her mother have been proven in court.
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