MONTREAL—The saga of the largest suspected fraud case in Canadian history took a macabre turn Monday as a years-long hunt for Dr. Arthur Porter, a presumed criminal who courted powerful political allies, led police investigators to a morgue in Panama.

It’s been nearly a week since the former health care administrator behind the creation of a Montreal mega-hospital was reported to have died from metastatic lung cancer, on July 1.

The trained oncologist had claimed since 2012 that he had diagnosed himself with the disease and had been battling it for most of his time in Panama’s overcrowded La Joya prison, where he had irregular access to doctors, drugs or other treatments.

The fact that the 59-year-old continued to live for so long fuelled suspicions that the cancer claims were another ruse by Porter to avoid extradition to Canada on charges that he had taken bribes for lucrative hospital construction contracts.

Those suspicions grew with reports that a Panama City doctor who had been treating Porter in his final days, and who said that the cancer had spread to his bones and liver, had signed a death certificate without actually seeing Porter’s body.

The visit on Monday by two investigators for Quebec’s anti-corruption force to the Panama City morgue, where Porter’s remains are being held, is the first volley in Canada’s efforts to close the book on a man who has caused headaches and embarrassment to the political class.

In addition to viewing the body and making plans to obtain fingerprints and a DNA sample on Tuesday to confirm the body as Porter’s, the Canadian government could also formally request the repatriation of the remains to Canada for additional tests.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs directed questions to the federal Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Porter was the director general of the McGill University Health Centre and handling plans to build a new hospital when questions were first raised about irregularities in the contracting process. The contract ultimately went to Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

It is alleged that Porter and other hospital officials received a total of $22.5 million in kickbacks from SNC-Lavalin executives in exchange for the lucrative contracts.

In January, Porter’s wife, Pamela, pleaded guilty to laundering the proceeds of crime in January and was paroled last month after serving five months of a 33-month sentence.

Pamela Porter told her parole board hearing that she felt betrayed by her husband and no longer wanted contact with him, according to Montreal newspaper La Presse.

A statement released by Porter’s biographer, Jeff Todd, said members of the Porter family were in Panama City, where he was being treated in the last six weeks of his life at the general hospital and the National Cancer Centre, but were not present for his death, which occurred suddenly.

It is not known whether the Porter family will contest an eventual repatriation of his body to Canada, but Todd said Porter’s own wishes were that he be buried in Sierra Leone, the country of his birth.

Indeed, it was ostensibly while on diplomatic business as an honorary consul for the African nation that Porter was captured after flying from his home in the Bahamas to Panama City. The lofty title was one of many that the bow-tie-wearing hospital administrator cherished.

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Others included his appointment by the Conservative government as head of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the body that oversees Canada’s spy activities.

It was here that he developed what he described as a close personal friendship and eventual business partnership with another doctor from Quebec, Philippe Couillard, the current Quebec premier.

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