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More recently, in 2010, Atwal was found to have been part of an automobile fraud ring that cheated the Insurance Corporation of B.C. by falsely reporting vehicles as stolen, changing their identification numbers and re-selling them. Atwal was a car salesman at the time and helped convert of one of the stolen vehicles, a judge found. He lost an appeal in 2012.

This isn’t the first time Atwal has caused embarrassing headlines for Canadian politicians. In 2012, Atwal was invited to watch the budget speech in the B.C. legislature, leading to the resignation of a Liberal official and a review of the invitation process after he was noticed in the gallery. At the time, former premier Christy Clark claimed she’d been unaware of Atwal’s background.

At the time, Atwal had a position on a federal Liberal riding association executive in Surrey, the Vancouver Sun reported, which he’d held since at least March 2011.

Gulzar Cheema, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, told the Sun that Atwal had been active for both the federal and provincial Liberal parties, and would attend fundraisers for the federal Liberals that Cheema organized, including one attended by then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Atwal has made other attempts to insert himself into federal and provincial politics. Aside from this week’s photos with Grégoire Trudeau and Sohi, older photos have surfaced of Atwal posing with prominent Canadian politicians, though dates and locations are not always clear. Photos shared on social media show Atwal with Trudeau at a Liberal Party event in Vancouver in May 2015, as well as with Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough, Ignatieff and Brampton Liberal MP Sonia Sidhu. An older photo, which Atwal posted to his Facebook profile in January 2013, shows him with a long-haired Trudeau before he was elected Liberal leader.