ertel asked coons if he knew there was “a little bit of an institutional turf war” between the rcmp and csis over “who should have that disruption power?”
coons agreed that both institutions believed they were the best one to use the new disruption powers.
ultimately, csis was granted the disruption powers.
ortis is charged with leaking or attempting to share highly sensitive intelligence about ongoing police investigations to four suspected criminals. rcmp investigators have testified at his trial that some of that information “burned” an undercover informant and could have jeopardized multiple international probes.
three of those individuals, salim henareh, muhammad ashraf and farzam mehdizadeh, ran money-service businesses in the greater toronto area and were suspected at the time by the rcmp and international partners of being “low-level” participants in an international money laundering network operated by altaf khanani.
according to a 2015 u.s. treasury department report, khanani’s network laundered billions of dollars on behalf of drug traffickers and terrorist organizations such as hezbollah, the taliban and al-qaida.
prosecutors also allege ortis leaked documents to b.c. businessman vincent ramos, the owner of phantom secure, which sold hyper encrypted cellphones to organized crime groups.