Red Flag

41. The Power of Three

After we had fine-tuned Cynthia's overview of how diners can tell if the meat dishes are fraudulent, and she had added a few examples, she looked up from her screen. "Next, a list of Frank's restaurants and their addresses. What should I call them?"

"Something that refers to our blog posts." I shrugged. "Maybe, restaurants known to be using this fraudulent menu."

Lorne pursed his lips. "If any of them have changed from using it, this could leave us open to charges of libel. Possibly reword it to restaurants suspected of having used."

"What about, suspected of using to make it stronger?"

"Good point, Kate." Lorne bobbed his head. "Using can be interpreted as either present or past in this context. And with suspected, it skirts being directly libellous."

While Cynthia worked at completing her post, Lorne and I combed through the hundreds of new comments on our blogs. Many of them named the restaurants where they had been served misrepresented slime, confirming the effectiveness of our posts, and I looked up, smiling. "These show the fast erosion of whatever residual goodwill the group has."

"Indeed, and with bloggers now telling us they've deleted their reviews, the decline will accelerate." Lorne shrugged. "Rinaldi might give up and slither away to find another scam."

"Might be easier for him to keep the menu and simply drop the prices to align with the quality." I chuckled. "He no longer has the expense of feeding reviewers – nor the salaries for high-end chefs. They need only supervised line cooks."

"True. But how do they regain a market after all this bad publicity?"

Cynthia looked up from her computer. "Rebrand, Lorne. All of them the same name – make the chain obvious and market it as one. Drop the prices and offer pub-style food in an upscale ambience. They've already shown there's a strong market for it – even at inflated prices."

"Hmmm. Makes sense. With reasonable prices, the flimflam of the menu descriptions becomes part of the setting. It becomes an honest business."

I nodded toward our computer screens. "Could he do this and come back at us with accusations of harming his business?"

"He could." Lorne chuckled. "But for the Courts, four requirements must be met to prove disparagement – that a false statement was made about the business, that the false statement was communicated to a third party, that the false statement was made with intent, and that the false statement damaged the business' reputation."

I chuckled. "He'd lose on all of these because of the necessity of showing it to be false. He'd have to counter all the online support and reinforcing agreement we've received."

"Exactly, Kate. But more important is that he'd have to expose himself in the process, so he wouldn't dare attempt it – not even to intimidate us. He's clever enough to know that we won't be able to convict him of bait and switch or a fraudulent menu."

"Yeah, it's the criminal activity – murder, arson, cybercrime, and God knows what else. I'm sure he knows we're onto him now. Have the Mounties tracked the land titles?"

Lorne nodded toward his computer. "So far, the taskforce has found that they're all leasehold – none of them owned."

"Umm, clever. If his targets didn't own the property, it would have been easier to make them fail."

"Yes, what I had thought. And having bought the furnishings, fittings and decor for pennies on the dollar, if the location didn't work, it would be financially rather painless to walk away from it."

"More cleverness. What about the leases? Are they all in the same name?"

He pointed to the clock. "It's not yet nine on a Monday morning. As soon as the various government offices open, the Mounties should begin receiving replies to Friday's unanswered queries, and they'll submit new ones for the restaurants they've uncovered over the weekend."

"Just thought." Cynthia patted her computer. "Frank used my suppliers for the media kits. I'll ask them how he paid. What contact information he gave."

"Better for the Mounties to do that, Cynthia. Send me your contacts, and I'll forward them to the task force. They can visit and use their power of subpoena to demand all information. The evidence gathered will be more admissible."

I heaved an admiring sigh. "The power of knowing legal procedures. We'd be bumbling around aimlessly without you – probably messing things up – allowing Rinaldi to slither away."

"This is part of the game organised crime plays. They know the boundaries of admissibility and how to use them. But Rinaldi appears to be a greenhorn in over his depth. He might have gained power through violence – he's shown he likes using it. He could have been frustrated, and he splintered off to form a new gang with other disgruntled members."

"Members?"

"There are two chapters of The Hells Angels in Lower Mainland. Also, the Red Scorpions, the Independent Soldiers, the Dhak group, and the UN are active in organised crime in the Vancouver area. Beyond the bikers, we're aware of members of two of the Hamilton Mafia families, and –"

"If you're aware of them, why are they still active?" I shook my head in disbelief.

"Because of their slipperiness." He chuckled. "Because we three have barely begun the process of shutting them down."