NEW ORLEANS: After years as a fugitive, a Montreal man pleaded guilty in a US court Wednesday to a 1981 conspiracy to defraud Egypt s government and a British bank of $7 million in a scheme involving a shipload of frozen chickens.
Alexander Henri Legault, 59, also admitted to trying to cheat Middle Eastern countries in fraudulent contracts for shipments of paper towels, eggs and tuna, according to an account released by prosecutors.
However, the frozen chicken fraud was the biggest and most complex of the eight criminal schemes to which Legault confessed, according to US Attorney Jim Letten in New Orleans.
This was a very sophisticated fraud scheme, Letten told AFP.
Legault had worked in the food commodities business and possessed an educational background in international financing, court records show.
His co-conspirator, Alphonse Joseph Demots, had experience with freight shipping.
In 1981, operating out of a suburban New Orleans apartment, Legault and Demots used phony names and a rented telex machine to set up fraudulent shipping businesses that falsely advertised their ability to send mass quanties of products to the Middle East.
The duo contracted to sell 5,000 tons of frozen chickens to the government of Egypt. Another victim of the scheme, Altoun Middle East Enterprises Ltd, brokered the transaction, records show.
Unaware of the fraud, Chemical Bank of London and Bank Misr of Egypt established credit to pay for the $7 million purchase and costs of shipping the frozen fowl.
To further the scheme, Legault admitted he and Demots falsified loading and transport documents, and included a bogus claim that the frozen chickens had been slaughtered according to certain Islamic religious rites, Legault s federal plea stated.
Demots was arrested in 1983 and served less than 3 years in prison, Letten said.
Legault fled with his Canadian wife to Montreal, where he successfully opposed years of extradition efforts by the United States before being arrested last October for failing to appear for deportation.
Under his plea agreement Legault faces up to seven years in prison. Sentencing is set for October 7. -AFP
