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OTTAWA Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino complained to the RCMP on Thursday about documents of unknown origin that purport to show details of offshore banking by Fantino.

"The allegation is completely false," said Chris McCluskey, Fantino's director of communications. "The minister has complained to the RCMP about possible mistaken identity, or identity theft."

Fantino personally denied having offshore accounts on Thursday after the website ipolitics.ca published a story revealing that Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson is looking at the documents.

"No, I don't have any offshore accounts," Fantino said. "I'm not going to get into that stuff. That's mudslinging. No. Unbelievable."

Postmedia News has had the documents for weeks but has not reported on them until now, because reporters were unable to determine their veracity and similar documents have been shown to be forgeries in the past.

The documents purport to show several accounts in the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas containing hundreds of thousands of dollars under the name Julian Fantino.

It is legal to have offshore accounts, but they are often used to avoid taxes, and Fantino's public declaration filed with Dawson do not show any such accounts.

The documents were provided to Dawson's office by Richard Lorello, an IT consultant and former Conservative candidate from Vaughan, the suburban Toronto riding that Fantino represents.

Lorello received the documents from an anonymous source last spring after he publicly raised questions about financial arrangements in the Vaughan Conservative riding association.

Lorello has been communicating via email with the source for months, but does not know the person's name. He said he forwarded them to the ethics commissioner because they raise questions that must be answered.

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Fantino calls in Mounties to probe 'mudslinging' over offshore accounts