How Two Guys May Have Pulled Off the Biggest Recycling Scam in Canadian History

Vice.com

The village of Andrew does not appear on the mental map of most Albertans. In the unlikely event it rings a bell at all, it is probably for one of two reasons: as the hometown of former premier Ed Stelmach, who took his share of lumps in the big-city newspapers for being a country bumpkin; or as the hometown of the world's largest duck, a venerable roadside attraction.

Now the 300-odd residents of the central Alberta village — 50 miles northeast of Edmonton — have a new claim to fame that's no less quirky: it may have been home of the largest recycling scam in Canadian history.

Alberta Reclaim and Recycle, an Edmonton-based company owned by Johnny Ha and Shawn Diep, are alleged to have swindled the province out of $769,778 CAD by bringing beverage containers in from Yukon territory in enormous amounts. Their transgression: claiming refunds for deposits on containers that had never been paid. The two men were slapped with an $833,778 "administrative penalty" by the Alberta government in February 2015 — the amount they earned from their scam, plus a $75,000 fine.

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