Career Options
Uncommon stocksWhat do a police officer, a bankruptcy lawyer and a stock manager for a large nail products company have in common? Lieutenant Luc Landry, Jocelyn Perreault and Catherine Delaney are all accountants whose careers are far from average. By Ann-Margret Hovsepian |
|
 [ 2008-10-07 ] |
To find out, take this test by eCareerFit, the career assessment experts.
TAKING THE LAW INTO HIS OWN LEDGERS
“It’s not every day that you see an accountant who’s armed and fighting crime,” says Lt. Landry, CGA, who has worked with Sûreté du Québec (SQ, the provincial police force) since May 1997. “Accounting isn’t just sitting behind a desk with a calculator.”
From childhood, Landry dreamed of one day becoming a police officer. By the time he finished high school, he had narrowed his area of interest to the money laundering field. He completed a certificate in accounting sciences and a bachelor’s degree in business administration (specializing in accounting) at Université du Québec à Montréal, knowing that one day he would apply at the RCMP, SQ or the Montreal police force.
In 1996, he attended the RCMP Academy in Regina and was posted as a police officer in Nanaimo, B.C. “I enjoyed my time there, but I was too far from home,” he says. After just over a year and a half, he secured a job with the SQ and moved back to Quebec.
Following two years of patrol work, Landry got into the investigations department and eventually joined the biker enforcement unit. He was involved in the spring 2001 police raids that resulted in the arrests of high-ranking members of the Hells Angels, and his investigations of Maurice “Mom” Boucher and his partners earned him the opportunity to testify as an accounting expert at a number of Superior Court hearings.
“It’s something I’m really proud of,” he says. “As an expert, you can draw conclusions, analyze the exhibits and give explanations for the things that happened. I was able to share my expertise and conclusions regarding all the seized drugs.”
Money laundering has been a criminal offence since 1989. “If you go back to those early years,” Landry says, “there wasn’t even a department investigating those types of crimes. I was still in school at the time, so I knew that studying accounting and business administration would help.
Now you can specialize in white-collar crime investigation — there are courses — but in the late 1980s, money laundering investigations were still new. I realized I’d have to specialize myself.” Today, police detectives interested in money laundering have a much clearer path to follow, with a three-week course in white-collar crime available through the police academy in Nicolet, Quebec.
Lt. Luc Landry, CGA, Sûreté du Québec
Photo courtesy of Lt. Luc Landry
In 2006, Landry was promoted to lieutenant and put in charge of the proceeds-of-crime unit. “I don’t necessarily do the investigations myself now, though I’m still involved,” he reports. “I have more of an administrative and supervisory role.” He explains that his expertise in accounting serves his current law-enforcement activities well, because he now deals mainly with lawyers and tax experts, often at an international level.
“Our suspects aren’t the Mom Bouchers. We’re not just looking at where the money is coming from, but also where it’s going. I deal with perhaps the highest level of criminals — not the person making $1,000 a day, but the mafia, or members of the Hells Angels. The job is challenging and stressful, but, for an accountant, doing things like top-secret police work and searches is pretty fun.”
Do you have you a bad boss?