Man jailed for 222 ‘bogus returns’ at N.B. Staples after asking for house arrest to avoid deportation

An Indonesian computer expert who processed 222 “bogus returns” at the New Brunswick Staples where he worked to get store gift cards that he exchanged for pre-paid, untraceable credit cards has been sentenced to 15 months behind bars, despite his lawyer’s argument that more than six months in jail will get him deported. Soegiono Liem Swie, who has permanent resident status in Canada, raked in between $89,732 and $93,338 as a result of his “repeated acts of dishonesty,” according to a Fredericton provincial court judge. “Mr. Swie’s large scale employee fraud took on considerable proportions,” Judge Scott Brittain wrote in a recent decision. “The aggravating factors are many and significant while the mitigating factors are, at best, muted.” Swie’s lawyer, Sabrina Winters, argued her client should get a conditional sentence of 18 months of house arrest and a year of probation. She also recommended her client be ordered to pay Staples back. “Laid bare, the thrust of Ms. Winters’ sentencing submission is that this otherwise weak case for exceptionality becomes a strong one due to the spectre of ‘collateral immigration consequences’ that looms for her client,” the judge said in his decision dated May 8. “I respectfully disagree and reject this suggestion in view of the circumstances of this offence and offender. While the period of incarceration I shall impose on Mr. Swie resides within the temporal range available for a conditional sentence, proportionality, parity, denunciation and deterrence each require that Mr. Swie serve a significant jail term for this offence.” Winters argued that if the judge sentenced Swie to more than six months in jail for the fraud over $5,000, “his right to appeal a removal order made under the (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act) will be lost and the certain outcome will be deportation.” Brittain “was unable to find any decisions of the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick where ‘collateral immigration consequences’ have been considered in the sentencing (or any other) context.” The judge acknowledged “that the prospect of deportation invites potentially grave consequences for Mr. Swie and his family given that Mr. Swie’s wife and two sons are Canadian citizens. In effect, it could ultimately lead to a separation or divide not unlike what they experienced as a family between 2016 and 2018 when Mr. Swie resided in Indonesia while his wife and two sons lived in Toronto.” Crown attorney Darlene Blunston recommended that Swie get a jail term of 12 to 18 months and a year of probation, and be ordered to pay Staples back. “I substantially agree with the sentencing submissions of the Crown and quite strenuously part company with those put forward on Mr. Swie’s behalf,” said the judge. “In my view, a sentence in the community … even of the longest possible duration with the strictest of conditions, would constitute an unfit sentence because it would be disproportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is consistently borne out by the sentencing authority from this province for employer theft and fraud.” Brittain pointed out that his “survey of the broader Canadian sentencing landscape reveals very few decisions where an offender facing ‘collateral immigration consequences’ has received a conditional sentence for large scale employee fraud.” Court heard Swie, 51, “has an extensive background in computers. After studying computer engineering at the university level in his native Indonesia for three years, Mr. Swie spent the next 21 years working in the computer sales and service field. Of those 21 years, 16 were spent founding, running and growing his own business. At its height, Mr. Swie’s enterprise employed 25 people.” Swie wound up his business in 2017 and joined his family in Canada the following year. He was a sales support supervisor at the Fredericton Staples — one of four management positions at the store — until he resigned Nov. 27, 2022. “Mr. Swie leveraged the enhanced level of access, responsibility and trust which accompanied his management position to process dozens of fraudulent return and refund transactions,” said the judge. “His serial misappropriations went undetected for some time and only became known when a customer attempted to return a gaming chair purchased from Fredericton Staples only to have that transaction declined because records reflected her item had been returned and refunded several months before. The customer pressed the issue further because the gaming chair remained in her possession and no refund had ever been made to her. The matter escalated beyond Fredericton Staples to Staples Canada and ultimately triggered an internal investigation which took on increasingly extensive proportions as the layers of dishonesty and deceit associated with Mr. Swie’s carefully planned, deliberate and calculated scheme were uncovered.” Authorities were able to recover $25,000 once Swie’s fraud was discovered. “It should be noted the recovery of the aforementioned sum was achieved by having the third-party company which manages the pre-paid gift cards place a stop payment on any unused balances,” Brittain said. Swie “identified and took advantage of gaps in Fredericton Staples (surveillance) camera coverage of the store to travel undetected between the cash register area at the front of the store and the locked electrical room at the rear of the store” where he turned the cameras off “for periods ranging from a few minutes to several hours.” Once the cameras were off, Swie returned to the cash register area “where he processed the fraudulent return and refund transactions,” said the judge. “To close the loop of deception, Mr. Swie routinely manipulated the inventory data he was chiefly responsible for managing and overseeing as the sales support supervisor to further hide his fraud.” Swie’s fraud took place between Dec. 8, 2021, and Nov. 27, 2022. Brittain noted that “the frequency and magnitude of these bogus transactions increased over the event date range and sharply intensified in the final few months” Swie worked at the store. His “fraud was prolific, far-reaching, long-lasting and meticulously planned and executed with the benefit of the elevated authority and access that accompanied his management position,” said the judge. On top of the jail sentence, Brittain handed Swie a year of probation and ordered him to repay Staples $64,732.

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