City sues company over missing cash

The City of Hamilton is suing a Toronto-based security company to recover several hundred thousand dollars of missing HSR cash.

The city has already recovered $800,000 of the approximately $1.7 million that allegedly went missing last year.

But, according to Mayor Fred Eisenberger, the city launched the legal action against Avero Security because it had no indication the company would be returning more of the money.

"We've reached the point where we believe we have to commence court action to recover the balance and the matter is now before the courts," Eisenberger said.

For more than four years, Avero held the city contract to collect, count, roll and deposit in a bank the coins from all HSR fare boxes.

The city terminated the contract with the private armoured-car company last October, shortly after discovering $1.7 million of fare box revenue had disappeared.