[4] On May 27, 2013, Porter was arrested in Panama on fraud charges, which alleged that he took part in a $22.5 million kick-back scheme related to the construction of McGill University Health Centre's new $1.3 billion hospital.
[8] His father, Arthur Porter III, spearheaded the expansion of the University of Nairobi in Kenya during the years when Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta was in power.
During the subsequent five years, Porter accepted several other concurrent positions, including Director of Clinical Care at the Karmanos Cancer Institute and associate dean at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
On February 12, 2008, Porter, as Director General and CEO of the McGill University Health Centre, announced the launch of the Institute for Strategic Analysis and Innovation website.
[20] Porter completed his second term in December 2011, having handed the academic health centre the largest grant to a single institution from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (nearly $100 million).
[27][28][29][30] After the National Post published revelations about his business dealings with international lobbyists and close ties to the president of Sierra Leone, Porter resigned as chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee in November 2011,[2] three months before the end of his contract.
[31] Porter's questionable business dealings and foreign connections included his relationship with Ari Ben-Menashe, a Montreal-based businessman and an ex-Israeli international lobbyist and arms dealer, who was arrested and charged in the United States for illegally attempting to sell military transport airplanes to Iran.
[32][33] Among the suspicious activities reported by the National Post were revelations that Porter had received $22.5 million in consulting fees from SNC-Lavalin prior to awarding the firm a $1.3 billion contract related to the construction of the McGill University Health Centre.
The hospital's board of directors initially came out in support of Porter, but he voluntarily resigned on December 5, 2011 in light of mounting media and public pressure.
The lawsuit indicated that Porter responded to a letter of October 2012 (demanding payment of the outstanding amount within one week) only with a three-line email, and that they had not heard from him since then.
[36] Further investigation of the case by the Charbonneau Commission on corruption in the Quebec construction industry resulted in allegations of involvement with SNC Lavilin and health centre employees in fraud and forgery.
The investigators then issued a warrant for Porter's arrest on February 27, 2013 on charges of fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, taking secret commissions, and money laundering.
[37][38] It also gave a link to a story in the Turks and Caicos Magazine, which refers to his establishing cancer centres both in the Turks and Caicos and Bahamas in conjunction with his long-time friend and business partner Karol Sikora, who is Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre,[39][37] in addition to their mutual cancer-business interests in the British Isles.
[42][43] The fraud against the Québec government related to his alleged role in the awarding of the $1.3-billion Montreal hospital construction and maintenance contract to SNC Lavalin.
[45] At the time of the alleged fraud, from 2008 to 2011, Porter was the CEO of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec, being in charge of one of Canada's largest health-care providers.
[43][47] Porter was claiming diplomatic immunity on the basis that he was travelling via Panama on a diplomatic mission to Antigua and Barbuda, on behalf of the government of Sierra Leone, according to his lawyer Ricardo Bilonick Paredes (formerly known as Ricardo Bilonick), a convicted drug smuggler with ties to Panama's former dictator, Manuel Noriega and Colombian cartels.
[50] On June 4, 2015, while Porter was still in La Joya jail fighting extradition to Canada, he set up a company, BQ Holding with the help of his lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick Paredes, who was listed as president.
[51] Bilonick Paredes passed millions of dollars in bribes to deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in the 1980s in exchange for the ability to fly planes packed with tons of cocaine from Panama to the United States.
An article by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, on July 2, 2015, noted that Panama ignored its own extradition laws, and Canada did not press to have his case handled quickly.
Despite his position as a privy councillor, the Canadian Prime Minister's Office did not issue a comment on his death and refused to lower the flag on Parliament Hill.