This woman’s identity was stolen in a CRA hack. Why hasn’t the impostor been charged in her case?

For years, B.C. nurse Leslie Warner sought justice against the impostor who stole her identity in 2020. The impostor claimed Warner had moved to Alberta and then hacked into her Canada Revenue Agency account and received a bogus refund in her name.  

Warner, who works at a hospital in Fernie in the province’s East Kootenay region, first needed to convince the agency she was a victim of identity theft and hadn’t received the funds. But she says the CRA then seemed uninterested in pursuing the real fraudster who stole the public’s money.

“I don’t know that the CRA is doing anything about it really,” Warner told fifth estate co-host Mark Kelley.   

She said the criminal investigations branch of the agency has never contacted her about tracking down the person who invaded her privacy and disrupted her life.

Even more concerning, said Warner, is learning recently that her CRA impostor could be known to authorities in Alberta. Documents filed by prosecutors in Superior Court show that two months ago, an Edmonton-area woman, Christina Cherpak, was charged with using Warner’s identity in an unrelated alleged social services fraud. 

Warner now believes the CRA has all the evidence it needs to begin its own criminal investigation into Cherpak, but has seen no signs of it happening.

“I think they feel like they’ve cleared my account and that’s that,” she said.

A fifth estate investigation last year revealed that Warner is not alone. She is one of at least 26 health-care workers in B.C. whose CRA accounts were hacked over several years, many of whom say the tax collector seems not to want to charge their impostors.

Former CRA investigator Shawna Roy says the agency may be too concerned about protecting its reputation rather than pursuing criminal investigations that might expose flaws in its fraud detection systems.

“There’s a lot of fancy words from CRA saying we care, this is important, we take it very seriously. But like when does it end? When does the bleeding stop?”

Roy said she left the agency in 2024 after a dispute about gaps in its audit and enforcement and raised alarm bells before her departure about weaknesses involving unauthorized access to taxpayer accounts. 

“We could have stopped it. It wouldn’t even have happened,” she said. “[But] it keeps getting worse.”

In an emailed statement, the CRA’s media relations office said its criminal investigations section “investigates the most serious cases” of tax-related offences but would not discuss investigations that it “may or may not” be undertaking. 

“The CRA takes these matters very seriously and has implemented robust measures to protect taxpayers’ accounts.”

The minister responsible for the Canada Revenue Agency, François-Philippe Champagne, did not respond to an email from the fifth estate about whether there were any ongoing criminal investigations into the hacked accounts.

A fifth estate investigation revealed last year that Christina Cherpak has connections to an address in Edmonton that created fake companies and fake T4 slips used to hack into several CRA accounts belonging to health-care workers in British Columbia.  

Over the course of several years, impostors walked into numerous H&R Block locations in Alberta using fraudulent identification of those health-care workers and repeatedly pocketed fraudulent “Instant Refunds,” amounts that reach into hundreds of thousands stolen from the public purse.

A search of records in Alberta’s criminal courts shows Cherpak has a long history of charges including for identity theft. 

None of those charges appear to relate to the scheme that hacked into taxpayers’ CRA accounts and generated large paydays for scammers.

Cherpak’s lawyer did not return an email requesting comment.

H&R Block did not respond to questions about whether it had reported those frauds to the CRA’s criminal investigations division.

In a statement, it said questions about a “potential” criminal investigation “should be redirected to the CRA.”

Chandra Hauer, another Interior Health medical worker whose CRA account was hacked by an Edmonton-area fraudster using an H&R Block location, said she has also seen no indication the agency wants to pursue her impostor. 

“I haven’t heard a single peep from CRA and [am] not surprised about it,” Hauer said via email. “CRA did a spectacularly poor job of handling my fraud case.”

Warner said she takes some comfort in finally learning the name of the woman who allegedly stole her identity. 

Three years ago, Warner was wrongly charged, fingerprinted and had her mug shot taken for defrauding Alberta social services. Investigators later realized it was Warner’s impostor who committed the crimes.

“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” she said. “It’s a complete nightmare.”

Edmonton prosecutors later showed her a copy of the Alberta driver’s licence set up in her name but with another woman’s picture. She said until recently that was all she knew about who her impostor might have been. 

The Denial Machine

She credits the fifth estate with putting pressure on authorities in Alberta to finally lay charges in the social services fraud, which involved her impostor falsely creating identities for three fictional children, also with the last name Warner. 

“It’s very satisfying,” she told Kelley.  “I never knew who had done this to me.”  

She says she still hopes the CRA will investigate and find out everyone who was involved in plotting to hack CRA accounts belonging to B.C.’s Interior Health workers. She believes it was a sophisticated tax fraud scheme and that more people could be involved.

In the meantime, Warner said she is looking forward to testifying against Cherpak in a trial scheduled for 2027, even if it has nothing to do with hacked CRA accounts. She said it’s a date she won’t miss. 

“I’ve got it in my phone. I plugged it into my calendar.”