A Canadian billionaire who was just given $314 million of taxpayers’ money to build and operate a new ICE mega-jail was accused of making death threats against his employees and their families if they told anyone about his company’s alleged financial troubles.
Stephan Crétier, 62, who has an estimated net worth of between $2.6 billion and $4.6 billion, runs GardaWorld Federal Services, which was awarded a massive contract to manage a forthcoming migrant detention warehouse in Arizona by the Trump administration. The Dubai-based businessman and his wife, a French model-turned-actress, own two multimillion-dollar vineyards in California’s Napa Valley, along with a beachfront mega-mansion in Donald Trump’s adopted hometown of Palm Beach, Florida.
The GardaWorld security company, which was described as a “private CIA” by Bloomberg, is headquartered in Montreal with subsidiaries in the U.S. It already provides guard services at Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” complex—which has faced intense backlash over inhumane conditions—but has no experience of managing detention facilities.
Crétier’s colleagues previously accused him of threatening to “kill any executive and the family of any executive” if they spoke publicly about an apparent downturn in his company’s finances, according to a copy of a Los Angeles complaint obtained by the Daily Beast.
“Crétier cautioned those present [at a company meeting] that he runs one of the largest detective and investigation companies in the world, and that his company was capable of investigating anyone and anything,” the document reads. “Crétier told the assembled executives that he would find out if any of them leaked information regarding the true financial condition of the corporation and that anyone found responsible would be killed.”
“I will kill you and I will kill your family,” were his alleged words.
His latest deal with Homeland Security comes amid carnage at the department after Donald Trump’s shock firing of Secretary Kristi Noem last week. The president canned Noem, who is nicknamed ICE Barbie for her habit of cosplaying as an immigration official, following a slew of scandals during her 13-month tenure.
They included splurging $220 million on advertising; efforts to purchase a $172 million luxury Boeing jet; writing off the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by ICE agents as a “domestic terrorism” incident; and reports of managerial carnage under her joint leadership with adviser Corey Lewandowski, with whom she is accused of engaging in an extramarital affair.
The department now remains in partial shutdown, with up to 90 percent of its staff working without pay, ahead of a confirmation hearing later this month for Noem’s replacement, MAGA Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. Officials are still trying to keep pace with Trump’s $38.3 billion detention expansion amid his administration’s nationwide deportation drive.
Crétier, who was born in Montreal to Swiss and Italian immigrant parents, does not appear to be a U.S. citizen. He has, unlike many of the contractors for Trump’s “America First” administration, lived in Dubai since 2010. His wife, Stephanie Maillery, 61, is a French former model and actress known for her appearances in 1995 sci-fi horror Screamers and 1996 B-movie thriller Hawk’s Vengeance.
The pair have, over the past decade and a half, nevertheless amassed a multimillion-dollar luxury property empire in the U.S., which includes a $20.2 million, six-bedroom, five-bath, 10,000 square foot mansion just a short drive south of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
They also bought Napa Valley’s Roy Estate vineyard in 2017, and in 2023 purchased the historic Vine Cliff Winery—one of the region’s first, dating back to 1871—for $57 million. Vine Cliff’s private stock retails at about $220 a bottle, while Roy Estate vintages go for upward of $350. Both wines are subject to waiting lists, with reviews describing them as “deep, plush and seamless.”
Crétier founded GardaWorld in 1995. The group has since grown into one of the world’s largest privately owned security companies, worth an estimated $11 billion.
The company, which has otherwise enjoyed monumental growth over the past three decades, apparently entered a period of serious financial difficulty in late 2007, prompting Crétier to convene a meeting that November of the group’s top executives, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court complaint filed the following year.
Richard Irvin—then Senior Vice President and COO at GardaWorld subsidiary ATI Systems International, and who later filed the complaint against Crétier—claimed the founder threatened at that meeting to use the company’s mercenaries to assassinate any executive who leaked details of the group’s money troubles.
Irvin, who claims he was fired after raising concerns over the group’s revenue, said he and his wife were forced to take “precautions to safeguard their personal safety and the safety of their family members” for fear the company’s employees “would carry out Crétier’s threat.” The case does not appear to have gone to trial.
A GardaWorld spokesperson told the Daily Beast that “these allegations, which were never proven in court, were made by a former executive in the context of a broader civil dispute relating the executive’s misrepresentations, defamatory conduct, and subsequent dismissal from the company.” They added that “the matter was ultimately resolved out of court, with no admission of liability or acknowledgement that the alleged facts took place.”
The company is now poised to compete for a further $138 million in ICE emergency detention contracts, according to the Globe and Mail. Acting ICE director Todd Lyons has described those tenders as part of a wider effort to turn the Trump administration’s deportation pipeline into “Amazon Prime, but with human beings.”
The group has already come under fire over the past year for guard services at Florida’s caged Alligator Alcatraz compound, where migrants are reportedly kept in “oversized kennels” with no sunlight, no clocks, and no reliable shower access. But it’s hardly the first time the company has faced backlash over its contracting with immigration authorities.
The firm provided security staffing in 2021 at an emergency shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in El Paso, Texas. An HHS Inspector General review found what it termed “gross mismanagement” that saw children going weeks without contact from case managers, suffering panic attacks and self-harm as a result. The GardaWorld spokesperson said the group was not responsible for “any services at the Fort Bliss facility that are referenced” in the HSS report.
The company faced a similar outcry following the 2022 suicide of American father Bryan Arthur Stone at a Canadian detention center staffed by the group. Stone, 56, had told guards he would take his own life if deported and separated from his son, and made a prior attempt four days earlier after being left unattended during a shift change. A coroner reportedly concluded his death “could have been avoided if the supervision had been adequate.”
Former employees have also accused the group of dubious dealings in contracts with the U.S. government. Company supervisor and Army veteran Justin Fahn filed a False Claims Act suit against the group in 2020, alleging the firm had falsified training records for nearly 100 guards sent to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The case was settled in 2024 on undisclosed terms. The GardaWorld spokesperson said “there was no finding that any personnel had failed to pass required training.”
The White House did not respond to questions in time for this story’s publication. Deputy Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Lauren Bis did not answer questions regarding GardaWorld’s record, noting only that the department’s contractors have “decades-long experience working with the federal government,” and that the contracts “will greatly increase ICE’s ability to efficiently remove illegal aliens from our country.”
