A Toronto food factory worker is being accused of swiping some of the most closely guarded recipes in the North American fast-food industry, according to court documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

Documents obtained by the newspaper allege the culprit is 42-year-old Abdool Gafoor.

For about the past year, the Guyanese immigrant and father of four worked as a temporary shift worker at Griffith Laboratories' Scarborough, Ont. plant.

The privately owned Illinois-based company, which bills itself "the food architects," is behind the spices, sauces and recipes for popular fast-food restaurants.

The last time Gafoor was seen at the factory was on Oct. 12, when he refused to do some lifting and walked out at 7:35 a.m.

The Globe reports that the Griffith webmaster received an email peppered with spelling mistakes about a year after Gafoor's start date that included the subject line: "The Rise and Fall of Griffith."

"Simple, the ball is in your court," the message said.

"Griffith has one year the most to go out of business. Please visit <http://www.bestbatter.com>. You will loose all of your major contracts. There would be no funds to finance your expansion in Brazil, China and so on . . . Watch me get back at Griffith."

The email was signed "Karen."

When company officials logged on to that site, which is no longer online, they found a number of partially revealed confidential recipes and formulas up for sale.

The site offered to reveal the entire recipes upon payment.

"Yes, recipes that have been claimed to be centuries old can now be all yours. Do not drain money into research and development, profiling the taste of North Americans. Get great recipes fast and easy, and lets all offer great foods at competitive prices. In this way none of us can hold the tongues of others at ransom," the website read.

On the same site, documents allege that officials found links for other websites created by Gafoor.

Since then, lawyers, police and private investigators have searched his home, as well as the residences of his ex-wife, sister and brother, seizing computers, documents and other items.

Gafoor is said to have co-operated with investigators in the beginning but he has since disappeared.

At the beginning of this month, he failed to show up for a court appearance and was found in contempt of court.

Griffith won't name the recipes that Gafoor is accused of stealing nor its client list.

But his sister, Rafeena Sahib, told The Globe that one of the investigators commented while searing through her personal effects that "the Colonel is turning in his grave."

Media outlets have reported that Griffiths is credited with creating tastes associated with chains such as KFC, and recipes such as McDonald's Chicken McNuggets.

Since his disappearance, Gafoor has continued to post messages on another one of his websites, www.justonjustice.com, saying he found the recipes in the garbage.

An undated message posted on the site says Gafoor is out of Canada and would like "Global Mail" to contact him at the email address he has provided.

The statement asserts that no formulas were sold and none will ever be sold.

"Their secret oil blends and recipes are very secure in cyber. It is felt that all parties involved, such as Griffith's customers needs to be given this assurance," the message says.

The site invites readers to write to a Trinidad and Tobago address for full details on the story.

"Gafoor claimed that he has never sold any of their Intellectual Properties, and managed to get the information from the garbage bin of a Toronto Company," says the statement.

"He also feels that there are some serious stories about what food are made available to North Americans via unscrupulous companies, and the great hazards that are involved in the preparation of these foods."

Griffith's vice-president of global communications Mark Duffy told The Globe that no factory worker would have access to complete recipes and the company is still trying to figure out how the recipes got out.