Crown prosecutors have spent the past five weeks laying out their case against Cameron Ortis in an unprecedented trial.
They allege he used his position as director of a highly-sensitive unit within the RCMP to attempt to sell intelligence gathered by Canada and its Five Eyes allies to police targets.
Ortis, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, has also started to tell the jury his side of the story.
His defence team says he was acting with authority.
OTTAWA — A former RCMP Assistant Commissioner says alleged leaks of classified intelligence by his ex-employee Cameron Ortis were “so criminal,” caused “irreparable harm” to the national police force, betrayed its “every” intelligence partner and could have “signed someone’s death warrant.”
A former RCMP investigator who worked on a money laundering probe says he was unaware at the time that someone had sent secret information to people who were of interest to authorities.
Retired staff sergeant Patrick Martin testified today in the trial of Cameron Jay Ortis, a former RCMP intelligence official charged with breaching Canada’s secrets law.
Newly released documents show Canadian involvement in an international investigation of an alleged money laundering ring in the Greater Toronto Area that authorities believe is linked to a man accused of laundering money for terrorists.
Altaf Khanani, a Pakistani national, has been on the radar of international law enforcement since at least 2008, when he was arrested in his home country for allegedly transferring money illegally.
The U.S. State Department accused Khanani, once described in a media report as “one of the world’s most wanted fraudsters,” of laundering billions of dollars for organized crime and terrorist outfits, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Diversity something something ….
OTTAWA — Court records show former RCMP intelligence director Cameron Ortis allegedly promised to continue leaking sensitive information to a B.C. businessman under international investigation if he agreed to pay $20,000 for a first trove of classified documents, prosecutors say.
The offer is described in a 507-page packet of documents that both the Crown and defence have agreed are factual and submitted in the trial of Ortis, who is charged with breaching Canada’s national secrets law.
OTTAWA – Former RCMP intelligence director Cameron Ortis allegedly sent an email demanding $20,000 to a B.C man under international criminal investigation in exchange for secret police information that contained the name of at least one undercover agent.
That’s just one of the shocking allegations revealed by Crown prosecutor Judy Kliewer during her opening statement of Ortis’ trial Tuesday.
But his lawyer says he had permission to do that sort of thing and given the Trudeau government I bet that’s true.
RCMP Const. Rick O’Brien was shot and killed and two officers were injured, while executing a search warrant in Coquitlam, about 30 kilometres east of Vancouver, on Friday morning.
O’Brien, 51, was a decorated constable from the Ridge Meadows detachment and he just recently celebrated seven years of service. He leaves behind a wife and children.
RCMP boosts contract scrutiny following review of dealings with China-linked firm
OTTAWA – The RCMP says it is updating its procurement practices after an internal review of dealings with a company that has ties to China.
A standing offer with Sinclair Technologies to provide the RCMP with radio-frequency filtering equipment was suspended in December after media coverage focusing on national security implications.
Sinclair’s parent company, Norsat International, has been owned by Chinese telecommunications firm Hytera since 2017, and the Chinese government has a 10 per cent stake in Hytera through an investment fund.
A recruitment ‘crisis’ threatens the RCMP’s future — the new boss has plans to turn it around
… The Management Advisory Board, an outside panel of experts set up to give impartial advice to the RCMP commissioner, recently reported that the force’s recruitment problem can be described accurately as a “crisis” — one that could threaten its ability to serve as Canada’s national police force.
“If these [regular members] are not replaced by new cadets from diverse backgrounds and with capacity to serve, the RCMP will be even more challenged to meet its service delivery commitments under the provincial, territorial and municipal police service agreements, and to maintain federal policing capacity,” the board said in a report released in May.
Agency’s future unclear as provinces consider replacing it and Ottawa reviews its role
On July 8, 2021, at about 9 a.m., the RCMP boxed in Jared Lowndes at the Tim Hortons drive-thru just off South Island Highway in Campbell River.
A police dog was sent in. Lowndes, 38, killed the dog with a knife. Shots were fired by police and Lowndes died.
Campbell River Mounties said they tried to stop Lowndes because he had an outstanding arrest warrant.
VICTORIA — B.C.’s Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth tried hard to create the impression Wednesday that the long-running debate over policing services in Surrey had reached the end of the line.
“This decision is the final decision,” he told reporters in Victoria.
He had given Surrey two chances to make the case for going back to the RCMP.
Both times the city “failed” to persuade him.
Once upon a time bell-bottoms, mullets, and “Gestalt” theory were trendy. Until someone realized two fashion blunders didn’t cancel out and people had always seen patterns. Like this one where the RCMP is desperately understaffed.
As the National Post reported, “The force provides police to provinces across the country, but it is missing [recruiting] targets in every region, with vacancy rates up to 17%.” You might say it’s not a pattern, even with the Armed Forces also officially short some 16,000 members, probably far more. It’s just as ugly as the purple jumpsuit Burt Reynolds wore on the “Tonight Show” in 1973 that the state cannot protect us from internal or external threats, its most basic duty.
A second former senior Mountie is allegedly caught up in an investigation into Chinese interference operations in Canada.
Kenneth Ingram Marsh, a B.C.-based private investigator and former commander of an RCMP international organized crime unit, has been named as a co-conspirator in the allegations along with former Mountie William “Bill” Majcher.
As an RCMP officer, William Majcher, 60, used fake identities to infiltrate organized crime groups to investigate money laundering. He even went undercover to help the FBI to build a case against a Colombian drug cartel, knowing that if he was outed, a bounty would be put on his head.
After leaving the national police force in 2007, Majcher moved to Hong Kong, where he helped create a firm called Evaluate Monitor Investigate Deter Recover (EMIDR) in 2016. The company’s raison d’etre was to help China and its corporations recover assets it alleged were stolen, Majcher said in previous interviews.
OTTAWA – The RCMP is falling well short of staffing levels in multiple jurisdictions across Canada where it has provincial policing contracts, with as many as one in six positions unfilled, leaving communities with fewer officers and detachments short-staffed.
