The chair of Ottawa's Chamber of Commerce has been named as one of 12 people linked to a major U.S. investigation looking at mail fraud.

Marie Boivin heads up a foreign exchange company called Accu-Rate which the U.S. Treasury Department believes is linked to an international group facilitating fraudulent activity.

CTV Ottawa has made every attempt to interview her on these allegations.

The question is whether Accu-Rate has specific ties to the alleged fraudulent activities of a group called “Pac-Net”, which has operations in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom and subsidiaries or affiliaties in 15 other countries.

Accu-Rate Corporation is where people go to get foreign currencies exchanged.

“I just go to Accu-Rate because it's cheaper to exchange money here than at my bank,” says one man, on his way in to the Carling Avenue storefront.

It is also, according to United States Treasury Department linked to a bigger corporation called PacNet, a payment processing company which the U.S. says is a “Significant transnational criminal organization.”

“The activities we're here to talk about today,” said Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney General at a news conference last Thursday, “have cheated Americans out of hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The alleged crime is mail fraud with victims paying for processing fees on fraudulent schemes including lottery prizes that don't exist.

“Every year, Americans receive tens of millions fraudulent solicitation letters,” explained Lynch, “and many falsely claim that the recipient has won cash and valuable prizes and in order to collect these benefits the letters say, the recipients need only send in a small fee for processing or taxes.”

The Attorney General says Vancouver-based PacNet helped to facilitate these fraudulent campaigns. The company has been on the radar of the Treasury Department for decades.

“PacNet has a nearly 20-year-history of knowingly processing payments relating to these fraudulent solicitation,” said John Smith with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Investigators have sanctioned PacNet's founder Rosanne Day and 11 other people, including the director of Accu-Rate, Marie Boivin who also happens to be the Chair of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce. Boivin was nominated business woman of the year last year. CTV Ottawa made several attempts to interview Marie Boivin both at the Accu-Rate office on Carling Avenue and at her Stittsville home.

The CEO and President of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, Ian Faris, said they are supporting Boivin, “This is a concerning allegation,” Faris said in an interview, “we would like to find out more information and will give the company, Accu-Rate every opportunity to come forward and to resolve this issue with the U.S. Government and we think they will.”

Ernie Laporte, the chair of the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health, where she also sits on the board, said in an email that

“Ms. Marie Boivin is an active and passionate member of the Royal Ottawa Foundation’s Board of Directors since 2015. We are aware of the allegations involving Ms. Boivin and her company Accu-Rate and will await more information before making any decision about her involvement as a Board member.

The RCMP say they are aware of the allegations against the PacNet Group but can't comment because no arrests have been made in Canada.