Ben Aissa and Duhaime allegedly arranged payments of $22.5-million to MUHC CEO Arthur Porter and his right-hand-man Yanai Elbaz in exchange for ensuring SNC won the $1.3-billion contract.
[6] In September 2012, American FBI agent Joseph Pistone, known for his undercover work with the Bonanno crime family, testified at the Charbonneau Commission as an expert witness regarding Mafia infiltration of U.S. labor unions in the construction industry.
[7] Witnesses detailed a system of bid-rigging that saw a cartel of engineering and construction firms obtain public contracts from the city of Montreal in exchange for political donations.
Collusion in the construction industry extended across the river to the city of Longueuil, testified Yves Cadotte, who was in 2014 senior vice-president and general manager of SNC's transport, infrastructure and buildings division.
According to a November 28, 2018 Global News report, UPAC Officer Jean-Frédérick Gagnon, told the inquiry in 2014 that "operation Lauréat" was an investigation into "the biggest corruption fraud in Canadian history"[11] implicating SNC-Lavalin in bribery for the construction of the MUHC.
[13] As a result of the testimonies by witnesses at the Charbonneau Commission, on June 17, 2013 Montréal interim mayor Michael Applebaum was arrested on charges of fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption in municipal affairs.
[14] On January 26, 2017, Québec Court Judge Louise Provost found Applebaum guilty of eight of the 14 corruption-related charges against him stemming activities that took place between 2006 and 2012 when he was serving as borough mayor of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.