Major theft: a music store victim of fraud of nearly $400,000

A former employee of the Musique Dépôt store in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was caught after embezzling the sum of $396,787 from his employers starting in November 2022.

“Right now, we’re picking up the pieces, it’s going to have real long-term impacts,” laments Gabriel Lapalme, one of the owners of the Musique Dépôt store.

Last September, the two owners of the company became aware of certain “unexplained discrepancies in its financial statements and payment delays with certain suppliers”. An internal investigation later revealed that fraudulent transactions had been made by a staff member.

“For two years, we noticed that we were losing a lot of money, but it is certain that the way of doing things was disguised. We didn’t suspect much,” he added.

The scheme consisted, in particular, of changing the names of suppliers and redirecting the funds to an external account in a roundabout way.

According to the owners of Musique Dépôt, it was virtually impossible to detect crime in their system in part because of inflation, which had an impact on their operating costs.

“For two years, there has been an inflationary period, so that somewhat corroborated the losses. We had losses, but there was a slowdown in sales. Everything meant that it could be justified for a certain time,” observes Gabriel Lapalme.

The targeted employee had been part of the team for several years and his modus operandi was on point.

“No one saw this coming, you never imagine that about people. This kind of person will gain and maintain your trust in such a way that you will never be able to realize it without the facts,” he concludes.

Following this discovery, Gabriel Lapalme and Patrick Turbide spoke to explain the situation to their customers in a video broadcast on social networks.

The two owners and music enthusiasts hope that the community will continue to encourage them to get through this difficult ordeal. Legal proceedings are underway, but the company “no longer hopes to recover the lost sums”. The employee in question was immediately fired and a criminal complaint was filed.

This is the second hard blow for Musique Dépôt since the business was the victim of a burglary on the night of July 4, 2024. This incident, however, would not be linked to the embezzlement.