23 dead, 1 police officer killed in Nova Scotia night ambush using RCMP vehicle, wearing uniform - Deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history, deadliest rural mass shooting in modern history

LiveFromNS

JIMI
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Yeah, lots of legal maneuvering going on now! I will keep an eye out for the Statements of Claim for both cases and post them.

After reading @Army Burger's post and going to the article, I came across this new one from today. I just found it so haven't even read it myself and it is quite long, but the title is interesting!:

The Nova Scotia killer had ties to criminals and withdrew a huge sum of cash before the shooting

There were two pieces of video within the article on Macleans website so I screen captured them and included them in the article where they were located within it on the site. Source link below.

PS-If you don't want to hear Santana live in 69 at Ludlow's Garage playing Soul Sacrifice turn your sound down! HAHA I didn't realize the screen capture was grabbing my speaker audio!

CANADA
The Nova Scotia killer had ties to criminals and withdrew a huge sum of cash before the shooting

New evidence including a video of the killer raises questions about his activities prior to the Portapique shooting and RCMP transparency around the case
By Paul Palango, Stephen Maher, Shannon Gormley
June 17, 2020
A still from a video showing Gabriel Wortman in the Brinks yard on March 30, 2020.

A still from a video showing Gabriel Wortman in the Brinks office on March 30, 2020.

The man who murdered 22 people in a two-day shooting rampage in Nova Scotia in late April withdrew $475,000 in cash 19 days before he donned an RCMP uniform and started gunning down his neighbours, contacts and random strangers.

Gabriel Wortman withdrew the money from the Brink’s office at 19 Ilsley Ave. in Dartmouth, N.S., on March 30, according to a source close to the police investigation, who provided Maclean’s with two videos.
The first video shows Wortman driving what appears to be one of his decommissioned white police cruisers into the fenced yard of the security facility. He is wearing a baseball cap and leather jacket. In the second video, taken inside, he conducts a transaction, then walks back to his cruiser with a carryall apparently filled with 100-dollar bills, according to the source, and stashes the bag in the trunk of his vehicle.

A uniformed Brink’s employee at the Dartmouth location said recently: “People are always surprised by how much money like that takes up so little space.”

That amount of hundreds would weigh less than five kilograms.

Wortman, a 51-year-old denturist, is said to have arranged the withdrawal from Brink’s after transferring the cash from an account at a major Canadian bank.




In Wortman’s last will and testament, a handwritten document he wrote in 2011, which was published last week, Wortman declared a number of properties assessed for about $700,000. The true real estate market value would likely be higher. He also declared about $500,000 in personal property, RRSPs and insurance policies.

The withdrawal of $475,000 suggests Wortman may have converted all of his liquid assets into cash or that he had a hidden stash of cash.

It is not clear what happened to the money from the moment the killer took it out of the Brink’s location to the time he was shot by RCMP officers during an attempted arrest at a gas station in Enfield, N.S., on April 19.
The lawyer for family members of the killer’s victims said Wednesday that the estate filing at probate court lists a large sum of cash, which he believes was recovered by the RCMP.

“I assume the public trustee has it,” said Robert Pineo, who is suing the estate.

Wortman’s common-law spouse filed a court document May 25 renouncing any claim on the estate, heading off a legal dispute with relatives of the victims.

“The goal is to liquidate his entire estate and have it made available to the family members,” he said.
On Tuesday, Pineo filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the RCMP and the province, alleging that the force failed to “protect the safety and security of the public.”

Nova Scotia RCMP did not respond to questions on Wednesday about what became of the money or whether Wortman was connected to any organized crime investigations.

A still from a video showing Gabriel Wortman in the Brinks yard on March 30, 2020.

A still from a video showing Gabriel Wortman in the Brink’s yard on March 30, 2020.

The officer who swore the RCMP’s first search warrants was Sgt. Angela Hawryluk. A 28-year veteran of the RCMP, Hawryluk stipulated in the documents that she is experienced in outlaw biker gangs, drug trafficking and confidential informants.

Superintendent Darren Campbell seemed to rule out the possibility that Wortman was a confidential informant for the RCMP at a press briefing on June 4. “The gunman was never associated to the RCMP as a volunteer or auxiliary police officer, nor did the RCMP ever have any special relationship with the gunman of any kind,” he said.

However, according to one law-enforcement source, Wortman often spent time with Hells Angels, and he had at least one associate with links to organized crime.

Sources say he was friendly with Peter Alan Griffon, a Portapique neighbour linked to a Mexican drug cartel. Sources say Griffon printed the decals that Wortman used on the replica RCMP cruiser he used in his murders.

In 2014, Griffon, then 34, was arrested by Edmonton police as part of an operation against a drug trafficking ring operated by the Mexican cartel La Familia and elements of the ruthless multi-national El Salvadoran gang MS-13. He pled guilty and was sentenced to seven years in prison on Dec. 12, 2017, for possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking and weapons charges.

At the time of the arrest police said they had seized from Griffon’s home: four kilograms of cocaine, ecstasy, $30,000 in cash, two 22 rifles, one with a silencer, a .44 calibre Desert Eagle handgun, a sawed-off shotgun, thousands of bullets and body armour.

Police issued a second warrant for Griffon’s arrest in 2015 after he returned to Nova Scotia, in violation of his bail conditions. He is believed to have been living in Portapique with his parents since 2019.

Sources say Griffon, who was friendly with Wortman, was working at a print shop and that he printed the decals without the permission of the business owner. Another law enforcement source says Wortman and Griffon were part of a group of drinking buddies in the Portapique area.

Griffon is no longer working at the print shop. RCMP said in May that the business owner and the person who printed the decals have co-operated with their investigation.

Griffon did not respond to Facebook messages and calls seeking comment on his relationship with Wortman.

Griffon is the first cousin of one of the victims, Sean McLeod, who was murdered along with his partner, Alanna Jenkins, on the morning of April 19 in West Wentworth, N.S.

According to obituaries, Griffon and McLeod’s mothers are sisters.
McLeod was a federal corrections officer at the Springhill Institution, a federal medium-security prison, while Jenkins worked in a provincial corrections institute for women in Truro.
It is not known if Griffon was imprisoned at Springhill.

McLeod and Jenkins were the first two victims of a total of nine in the second day of Wortman’s rampage. The night before he had killed 13 people in Portapique and gave the RCMP the slip, escaping on a dirt road in his replica cruiser while much of the small seaside community was in flames.

Wortman appears to have spent several hours at the home of McLeod and Jenkins. He murdered the couple, set their home on fire and then murdered neighbour Tom Bagley, a volunteer firefighter who is believed to have approached the property to investigate the fire.

Family members of victims and law-enforcement officials have raised questions about the RCMP’s handling of the event. The force failed to contain Wortman, did not block the highway links to Truro and Halifax and did not issue a provincial alert. Two officers also shot up the firehall in Onslow.

A former neighbour of Wortman has expressed frustration that the RCMP did not act earlier. Brenda Forbes, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, told the RCMP in 2013 that he had a stash of illegal weapons, and that she had heard three male witnesses had seen Wortman strangling and hitting his common-law wife. Forbes said the RCMP abandoned their investigation because witnesses were unwilling to come forward. The RCMP have said that privacy law prevents them from commenting on complaints that do not result in charges.

An RCMP officer, speaking off the record because the officer is not authorized to discuss the case, said this week that the RCMP’s inaction on the complaint from Forbes seems odd.

“There’s zero tolerance, if we get called in to a domestic, somebody’s got to go, if there’s enough evidence,” the officer said. “It’s a simple 487, a search warrant to go get those guns. I would have wrote it off the statement from the two military people.”

Forbes’ complaint was not Wortman’s first run-in with police. Two years earlier, a source told a Truro police officer that Wortman was armed and wanted to kill a police officer. This information was sent to police agencies throughout Nova Scotia as a bulletin, but RCMP have not provided information on how they acted on it.

Wortman’s father told Frank magazine that he told police about 10 years ago that he had heard his son was threatening to kill him, but that after his son denied the threat and the existence of firearms to police, police did not investigate further. Years before that, he says, while on vacation in Cuba, without warning Wortman had repeatedly punched him in the head until he was unconscious. And in 2002, Wortman pleaded guilty to assaulting a 15-year old boy, but received a conditional discharge if he completed nine months probation and paid a $50 fine. The boy, now grown, has told Global news reporters that he wishes more had been done.

A number of current and former RCMP members familiar with the way the force handles undercover operations but not privy to details about this investigation have speculated that Wortman’s case has the hallmarks of a police informant operation.

Officers are struck by a speeding ticket the RCMP issued Wortman at 5:58 pm on Feb. 12, 2020, on Portapique Beach Road. Wortman was driving one of the former police vehicles in his collection.

At the time the ticket was issued, the RCMP was in the midst of undertaking multiple arrests of Hell’s Angels and their associates in Halifax and New Brunswick. Officers speculate that if Wortman was a confidential informant that his cover had been blown.

“The ticket stinks” said one current RCMP member. “At 6 o’clock at night in February in rural Nova Scotia nobody is doing radar. But it’s a standard trick used to pass messages to informants or create cover to prove to the targets that the informant and the police are on opposite teams.”

To date, both the federal and provincial governments have deflected calls for a public inquiry into the worst mass shooting in Canadian history.

Last week, Nova Scotia Attorney General Mark Furey indicated that a joint federal-provincial inquiry would be announced, but that has not happened. Furey, a former RCMP Staff-Sergeant, has said in the past that he believes he can be objective in dealing with the force and does not have a conflict of interest.

A number of current and former police officers have told Maclean’s that they are suspicious about the motives behind the delay in calling an inquiry.

A current RCMP member who is aware of the inner operations of the RCMP said the real story about the lead-up to the shootings and what actually happened on the weekend of April 18 and 19 would likely be contained in internal documents within the force. The RCMP member pointed specifically to a digital document called a Form 2315. In those forms the RCMP in any province would typically describe in candid language the status of any ongoing major investigation or project. The information in these forms is emailed to a working group, likely under the Deputy Commissioner in charge of Operations, and then on to the Commissioner.

“In those forms the RCMP will speak freely about what happened,” the Mountie said in one of several interviews. “You have to get your hands on them. That’s where the real story can be found.”
The unwillingness of the RCMP and governments to provide a more detailed account of what happened has frustrated and angered some family members of the deceased.

On May 31, Darcy Dobson, whose mother, Heather O’Brien, was murdered by Wortman on April 19, expressed anger in a Facebook post: “If this is the worst massacre in Canadian history why are we not trying to learn from it? What’s the hold up in the inquiry? Why hasn’t this happened yet? Where are we in the investigation? Was someone else involved? Why can’t we get any answers at all 40 days in?! The fact that anyone of us has to ask these questions is all very concerning and only makes everyone feel inadequate, unimportant and unsafe.”

RCMP say they are still investigating where Wortman got the four illegal guns he used in his rampage, declining to release details because of the ongoing investigation.

An RCMP officer not authorized to comment said investigators appear to be trying to avoid public scrutiny.
“They’re closing shit off as fast as they can. They don’t want to open up everything else.”
Contact our reporters:
Stephen Maher: stephenjamesmaher@gmail.com
Shannon Gormley: shannon.n.gormley@gmail.com
Paul Palango: Paulpalango@eastlink.ca
 

LiveFromNS

JIMI
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Just beat me to that macleans article. Yeah, this is starting to look like a big glowing shit pie.
Sorry bout that man. LOL

I also just came across this video. It appears to be a recording of a local radio program called the Rick Howe Show on News 95.7. Again, I only watched first few seconds and heard Rick's voice and given its a dashcam video, I assume someone was on the episode. Again, another interesting title:

The Nova Scotia Mass Shooting Gunman May Have Been A Confidential Informant For The RCMP.
Details under the video on YT:
This is from the June 11th 2020 Rick Howe Show. Show time was 10:00 am The link for sharing the broadcast does not work and it redirects to a different show so here you go.
EDIT-Given that odd comment about not being able to hear the episode on News95.7 I thought I better archive that shit!
 
Last edited:

Jet Fuel Johnny

Full Metal Sperg
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net

"Two families of the victims of the Nova Scotia mass shooting are launching a proposed class-action lawsuit against the RCMP that questions not just how the force handled the rampage, but its actions in the weeks that followed."

"The lawsuit said one vehicle was released back to an unnamed family with gun casings and body parts still inside. A family member "was required to clean the car themselves.""

What. The. Fuck.
At least in the US the cops would have just sold the car at auction to a friend and let you file an insurance claim.

Christ.
 

Army Burger

RIP John Lewis
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net

" The withdrawal of $475,000 in cash by the man who killed 22 Nova Scotians in April matches the method the RCMP uses to send money to confidential informants and agents, sources say. "

" Sources in both banking and the RCMP say the transaction is consistent with how the RCMP funnels money to its confidential informants and agents, and is not an option available to private banking customers. "

" If Wortman was an RCMP informant or agent, it could explain why the force appeared not to take action on complaints about his illegal guns and his assault on his common-law wife. "

This could explain why the RCMP have been dragging their heels in regards to getting an inquiry set up.
 

Ivan Shatov

Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
kiwifarms.net

" The withdrawal of $475,000 in cash by the man who killed 22 Nova Scotians in April matches the method the RCMP uses to send money to confidential informants and agents, sources say. "

" Sources in both banking and the RCMP say the transaction is consistent with how the RCMP funnels money to its confidential informants and agents, and is not an option available to private banking customers. "

" If Wortman was an RCMP informant or agent, it could explain why the force appeared not to take action on complaints about his illegal guns and his assault on his common-law wife. "

This could explain why the RCMP have been dragging their heels in regards to getting an inquiry set up.
Read this somewhere else a few days ago, the part about him taking out $475,000 from Brinks.

For a long time, Brinks had a service called Secure Vault. You could arrange a large cash pickup from one of their locations. There was some cloak and dagger to it, like needing to arrive at an exact time to enter the building and getting locked in the entrance if you messed up giving them the transaction number. You didn't need to even give them a name, you just needed to be there at the right time and give them a number.

But that was supposed to have ended in the late 80s. Narcos were using it to launder massive amounts of cash through shell companies and it was harder to track because the capital was not exiting at a bank. I thought it was shutdown worldwide.

If I was a little more up to speed on transport currency, I'd be tempted to say the RCMP has no way to do this and the article is bullshit. Brinks is supposed to just move money from place to place, at least for a time that was very seriously enforced.
 

Cast Iron Pan

Firstborn son of Artavius Quarterman
kiwifarms.net
Canadians lost their gun rights over what looks to be an inside job (of course, as always):


The Nova Scotia shooter case has hallmarks of an undercover operation
Police sources say the killer's withdrawal of $475,000 was highly irregular, and how an RCMP ‘agent’ would get money
The withdrawal of $475,000 in cash by the man who killed 22 Nova Scotians in April matches the method the RCMP uses to send money to confidential informants and agents, sources say.

Gabriel Wortman, who is responsible for the largest mass killing in Canadian history, withdrew the money from a Brink’s depot in Dartmouth, N.S., on March 30, stashing a carryall filled with hundred-dollar bills in the trunk of his car.

According to a source close to the police investigation the money came from CIBC Intria, a subsidiary of the chartered bank that handles currency transactions.

Sources in both banking and the RCMP say the transaction is consistent with how the RCMP funnels money to its confidential informants and agents, and is not an option available to private banking customers.

The RCMP has repeatedly said that it had no “special relationship” with Wortman.

Court documents show Wortman owned a New Brunswick-registered company called Berkshire-Broman, the legal owner of two of his vehicles (including one of his police replica cars). Whatever the purpose of that company, there is no public evidence that it would have been able to move large quantities of cash. Wortman also ran his own denturist business and there is no reason to believe it also would require him to handle large amounts of cash.

If Wortman was an RCMP informant or agent, it could explain why the force appeared not to take action on complaints about his illegal guns and his assault on his common-law wife.

A Mountie familiar with the techniques used by the force in undercover operations, but not with the details of the investigation into the shooting, says Wortman could not have collected his own money from Brink’s as a private citizen.

“There’s no way a civilian can just make an arrangement like that,” he said in an interview.

He added that Wortman’s transaction is consistent with the Mountie’s experience in how the RCMP pays its assets. “I’ve worked a number of CI cases over the years and that’s how things go. All the payments are made in cash. To me that transaction alone proves he has a secret relationship with the force.”

A second Mountie, who does not know the first one but who has also been involved in CI operations, also believes that Wortman’s ability to withdraw a large sum of money from Brink’s is an indication that Wortman had a link with the police. “That’s tradecraft,” the Mountie said, explaining that by going through CIBC Intria, the RCMP could avoid typical banking scrutiny, as there are no holds placed on the money.

“That’s what we do when we need flash money for a buy. We don’t keep stashes of money around the office. When we suddenly need a large sum of money to make a buy or something, that’s the route we take. I think [with the Brink’s transaction] you’ve proved with that single fact that he had a relationship with the police. He was either a CI or an agent.”

A Canadian retail banking expert speaking on condition that they not be identified says it is unlikely that Wortman was cashing out his own savings when he collected the money from Brinks after the money was transferred from CIBC Intria.

“When you come into my branch and you want a ton of cash, then I say, you gotta give us a couple of days. We put in our Brink’s order, I order the money through Brink’s, then when the money arrives, you come back into the branch, I bring you into a back room and I count the money out for you,” the banking expert said. “Sending someone to Brink’s to get the money? I’ve never heard of that before. The reason is, if I’m the banker, and you’ve deposited your savings in my bank branch, I’m responsible for making sure the money goes to the right person. If you want this money, I’m going to verify your identity and document that. I can’t do that if I’m transferring the money to Brink’s.”

In response to detailed questions from Maclean’s about the transaction, a CIBC spokesperson replied via email: “Our hearts and thoughts are with the families and the entire community as they deal with this senseless tragedy and loss. Unfortunately we are not able to comment on specific client matters.” Brinks did not reply to questions about the transaction.

The banking expert speculates that the RCMP could keep transactions relatively quiet by going through Brink’s instead of a bank to transfer money to a confidential informant or an agent.

“You can imagine that if someone comes in with large sums of cash, that stuff is not kept quiet. You don’t want that. Maybe what the RCMP was doing is they thought they could keep things quieter simply by transferring funds via Brink’s.”

At a press briefing on June 4, Nova Scotia RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell seemed to rule out the possibility that Wortman was a confidential informant for the force. “The gunman was never associated to the RCMP as a volunteer or auxiliary police officer, nor did the RCMP ever have any special relationship with the gunman of any kind.”

The RCMP Operations Manual, a copy of which was obtained by Maclean’s, authorizes the force to mislead all but the courts in order to conceal the identity of confidential informants and agent sources.

“The identity of a source must be protected at all times except when the administration of justice requires otherwise, i.e. a member cannot mislead a court in any proceeding in order to protect a source.”

A spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia RCMP declined further comment after Maclean’s reported on the financial transaction.

“This is still an active, ongoing investigation,” said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke in an email on Friday. “All investigative avenues and possibilities continue to be explored, analyzed, and processed with due diligence. This is to ensure that the integrity of the investigation is not compromised. We cannot release anything more related to your questions.”

Maclean’s reported earlier this week that sources say Wortman had social relationships with Hells Angels, and with a neighbour, Peter Alan Griffon, who recently finished serving part of a seven-year sentence for drug and firearm offences linked to La Familia, a Mexican cartel. Sources say Griffon printed the decals that Wortman used on the replica RCMP cruiser he used in his rampage.

Sources say that RCMP in New Brunswick, not Nova Scotia, recently took over operational control of investigations into outlaw bikers in the Maritimes, which means that Nova Scotia Mounties may not have been aware of any connection to Wortman.

The RCMP Operations Manual identifies two types of sources: informant sources and agent sources. A law enforcement source said the force uses Brink’s to make large payments to agent sources, not informant sources.

“Informants are never paid more than a couple hundred at a time,” said a person briefed on RCMP operations. “Anything over $10,000 is agent money.”

Agents typically have greater responsibilities than informants. Only officers who have received specialized training are allowed to handle agents.

“An agent source is a person tasked by investigators to assist in the development of target operations,” says the manual. “Direct involvement and association with a target may result in his/her becoming a material and compellable witness, ie. a source used to introduce undercover operations, act as a courier for controlled delivers or act in place of an RCMP undercover operator by obtaining evidence.”

If the money was a transfer from the RCMP to an agent, there would be a paper trail through FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, which tracks large cash transactions and suspicious transactions.

“Brink’s does the FINTRAC paperwork saying it’s coming from us, it’s from a chartered bank, and the RCMP liaison at FINTRAC signs off, handles the paperwork,” said a source briefed on the system. “The RCMP guys clear it or they refer it for further investigation. They manually clear those FINTRAC reports coming from Brink’s related to paid agents.”

The RCMP Operations Manual requires officers handling confidential informants and agents to send reports to the director of the Covert Operations Branch at National Headquarters.

Headquarters’ media relations office said in an email Friday that Campbell’s statement that the force never had a “special relationship” with Wortman “still stands.”

The attorney general of Nova Scotia, former RCMP staff sergeant Mark Furey, has said the province is in talks with Ottawa about a joint federal-provincial inquiry or review of Wortman’s murderous rampage.

Furey’s office did not reply before deadline to a question about whether the terms of the inquiry would allow inquiry counsel to pierce the powerful legal privilege that attaches to confidential informants.

Family members of the victims have complained that the process is dragging out. As calls for an inquiry mount, so does speculation about what happened, among both the general public and the RCMP.

One former Mountie says he doesn’t understand why Wortman would turn against the Mounties if they were paying him. “What seems inconsistent to me is why are you going to bite the hand that feeds you? If he’s getting money, and that’s a lot of money for an agent, or a CI, that part doesn’t make sense to me.”

The former investigator pointed out that if Wortman was acting for the RCMP, and receiving that amount of money, he would eventually be expected to testify.

“If he was an agent, he should show up on a witness docket.”

But another Mountie says, “This guy always wanted to be a Mountie. He was acting like a Mountie. He was doing Mountie things. It’s clear to me that something went wrong.”
 

Save the Loli

kiwifarms.net
Is this the first time a mass shooting has ever actually been reported as an inside job or otherwise involving some serious fuckery? Seems like the RCMP/other agencies are insanely inept at covering their trail compared to the guys in Vegas who (probably) helped bury the truth behind Stephen Paddock's massacre.
 

Army Burger

RIP John Lewis
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Is this the first time a mass shooting has ever actually been reported as an inside job or otherwise involving some serious fuckery? Seems like the RCMP/other agencies are insanely inept at covering their trail compared to the guys in Vegas who (probably) helped bury the truth behind Stephen Paddock's massacre.
There's definitely some fuckery going on with the RCMP.
 

I can't imagine

kiwifarms.net
Is this the first time a mass shooting has ever actually been reported as an inside job or otherwise involving some serious fuckery? Seems like the RCMP/other agencies are insanely inept at covering their trail compared to the guys in Vegas who (probably) helped bury the truth behind Stephen Paddock's massacre.

I suppose if you consider Alex Jones to be "reporting" (definitely a stretch), then there's Sandy Hook. Though he walked that back quite a bit after he got sued.
 

Koby_Fish

The advice of the GALACTICALLY STUPID
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
The Nova Scotia shooter case has hallmarks of an undercover operation


Police sources say the killer's withdrawal of $475,000 was highly irregular, and how an RCMP ‘agent’ would get money



By Paul Palango, Stephen Maher, Shannon Gormley June 19, 2020

The withdrawal of $475,000 in cash by the man who killed 22 Nova Scotians in April matches the method the RCMP uses to send money to confidential informants and agents, sources say.


Gabriel Wortman, who is responsible for the largest mass killing in Canadian history, withdrew the money from a Brink’s depot in Dartmouth, N.S., on March 30, stashing a carryall filled with hundred-dollar bills in the trunk of his car.


According to a source close to the police investigation the money came from CIBC Intria, a subsidiary of the chartered bank that handles currency transactions.


Sources in both banking and the RCMP say the transaction is consistent with how the RCMP funnels money to its confidential informants and agents, and is not an option available to private banking customers.


The RCMP has repeatedly said that it had no “special relationship” with Wortman.


A Mountie familiar with the techniques used by the force in undercover operations, but not with the details of the investigation into the shooting, says Wortman could not have collected his own money from Brink’s as a private citizen.


“There’s no way a civilian can just make an arrangement like that,” he said in an interview.


He added that Wortman’s transaction is consistent with the Mountie’s experience in how the RCMP pays its assets. “I’ve worked a number of CI cases over the years and that’s how things go. All the payments are made in cash. To me that transaction alone proves he has a secret relationship with the force.”


A second Mountie, who does not know the first one but who has also been involved in CI operations, also believes that Wortman’s ability to withdraw a large sum of money from Brink’s is an indication that Wortman had a link with the police. “That’s tradecraft,” the Mountie said, explaining that by going through CIBC Intria, the RCMP could avoid typical banking scrutiny, as there are no holds placed on the money.


“That’s what we do when we need flash money for a buy. We don’t keep stashes of money around the office. When we suddenly need a large sum of money to make a buy or something, that’s the route we take. I think [with the Brink’s transaction] you’ve proved with that single fact that he had a relationship with the police. He was either a CI or an agent.”


A Canadian retail banking expert speaking on condition that they not be identified says it is unlikely that Wortman was cashing out his own savings when he collected the money from Brinks after the money was transferred from CIBC Intria.


“When you come into my branch and you want a ton of cash, then I say, you gotta give us a couple of days. We put in our Brink’s order, I order the money through Brink’s, then when the money arrives, you come back into the branch, I bring you into a back room and I count the money out for you,” the banking expert said. “Sending someone to Brink’s to get the money? I’ve never heard of that before. The reason is, if I’m the banker, and you’ve deposited your savings in my bank branch, I’m responsible for making sure the money goes to the right person. If you want this money, I’m going to verify your identity and document that. I can’t do that if I’m transferring the money to Brink’s.”


In response to detailed questions from Maclean’s about the transaction, a CIBC spokesperson replied via email: “Our hearts and thoughts are with the families and the entire community as they deal with this senseless tragedy and loss. Unfortunately we are not able to comment on specific client matters.” Brinks did not reply to questions about the transaction.


The banking expert speculates that the RCMP could keep transactions relatively quiet by going through Brink’s instead of a bank to transfer money to a confidential informant or an agent.


“You can imagine that if someone comes in with large sums of cash, that stuff is not kept quiet. You don’t want that. Maybe what the RCMP was doing is they thought they could keep things quieter simply by transferring funds via Brink’s.”


At a press briefing on June 4, Nova Scotia RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell seemed to rule out the possibility that Wortman was a confidential informant for the force. “The gunman was never associated to the RCMP as a volunteer or auxiliary police officer, nor did the RCMP ever have any special relationship with the gunman of any kind.”


The RCMP Operations Manual, a copy of which was obtained by Maclean’s, authorizes the force to mislead all but the courts in order to conceal the identity of confidential informants and agent sources.


“The identity of a source must be protected at all times except when the administration of justice requires otherwise, i.e. a member cannot mislead a court in any proceeding in order to protect a source.”


A spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia RCMP declined further comment after Maclean’s reported on the financial transaction.


“This is still an active, ongoing investigation,” said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke in an email on Friday. “All investigative avenues and possibilities continue to be explored, analyzed, and processed with due diligence. This is to ensure that the integrity of the investigation is not compromised. We cannot release anything more related to your questions.”


Maclean’s reported earlier this week that sources say Wortman had social relationships with Hells Angels, and with a neighbour, Peter Alan Griffon, who recently finished serving part of a seven-year sentence for drug and firearm offences linked to La Familia, a Mexican cartel. Sources say Griffon printed the decals that Wortman used on the replica RCMP cruiser he used in his rampage.


Sources say that RCMP in New Brunswick, not Nova Scotia, recently took over operational control of investigations into outlaw bikers in the Maritimes, which means that Nova Scotia Mounties may not have been aware of any connection to Wortman.


The RCMP Operations Manual identifies two types of sources: informant sources and agent sources. A law enforcement source said the force uses Brink’s to make large payments to agent sources, not informant sources.


“Informants are never paid more than a couple hundred at a time,” said a person briefed on RCMP operations. “Anything over $10,000 is agent money.”


Agents typically have greater responsibilities than informants. Only officers who have received specialized training are allowed to handle agents.


“An agent source is a person tasked by investigators to assist in the development of target operations,” says the manual. “Direct involvement and association with a target may result in his/her becoming a material and compellable witness, ie. a source used to introduce undercover operations, act as a courier for controlled delivers or act in place of an RCMP undercover operator by obtaining evidence.”


If the money was a transfer from the RCMP to an agent, there would be a paper trail through FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, which tracks large cash transactions and suspicious transactions.


“Brink’s does the FINTRAC paperwork saying it’s coming from us, it’s from a chartered bank, and the RCMP liaison at FINTRAC signs off, handles the paperwork,” said a source briefed on the system. “The RCMP guys clear it or they refer it for further investigation. They manually clear those FINTRAC reports coming from Brink’s related to paid agents.”


The RCMP Operations Manual requires officers handling confidential informants and agents to send reports to the director of the Covert Operations Branch at National Headquarters.


Headquarters’ media relations office said in an email Friday that Campbell’s statement that the force never had a “special relationship” with Wortman “still stands.”


The attorney general of Nova Scotia, former RCMP staff sergeant Mark Furey, has said the province is in talks with Ottawa about a joint federal-provincial inquiry or review of Wortman’s murderous rampage.


Furey’s office did not reply before deadline to a question about whether the terms of the inquiry would allow inquiry counsel to pierce the powerful legal privilege that attaches to confidential informants.


Family members of the victims have complained that the process is dragging out. As calls for an inquiry mount, so does speculation about what happened, among both the general public and the RCMP.


One former Mountie says he doesn’t understand why Wortman would turn against the Mounties if they were paying him. “What seems inconsistent to me is why are you going to bite the hand that feeds you? If he’s getting money, and that’s a lot of money for an agent, or a CI, that part doesn’t make sense to me.”


The former investigator pointed out that if Wortman was acting for the RCMP, and receiving that amount of money, he would eventually be expected to testify.


“If he was an agent, he should show up on a witness docket.”


But another Mountie says, “This guy always wanted to be a Mountie. He was acting like a Mountie. He was doing Mountie things. It’s clear to me that something went wrong.”
This smells to high heaven on so many levels.
:thunkful:




Court documents show Wortman owned a New Brunswick-registered company called Berkshire-Broman, the legal owner of two of his vehicles (including one of his police replica cars). Whatever the purpose of that company, there is no public evidence that it would have been able to move large quantities of cash. Wortman also ran his own denturist business and there is no reason to believe it also would require him to handle large amounts of cash.


If Wortman was an RCMP informant or agent, it could explain why the force appeared not to take action on complaints about his illegal guns and his assault on his common-law wife.
 

Pukebucket

Genderfear - Thee/Thine
kiwifarms.net
Wow, that's pretty darn scandalous.

However, North America doesn't give a shit about scandals.
Newfoundland has been hemming and hawing about whether or not to defund the police, especially after the Newfie cops showed off an almost 400k cop car they were looking to acquire. I can only imagine that this might veer people even harder towards reducing the RCMP's budget.

4a5001b7beea096457f480c8808572428b-09-roll-safe.rsquare.w700.jpg

An active shooter can't trick the cops if there aren't any cops left.
 

Army Burger

RIP John Lewis
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Supposedly this FB post is from a person who says he is friend of Wortman and that the Brinks money thing was for a cartel debt.

View attachment 1393499View attachment 1393502View attachment 1393503View attachment 1393505
SOURCE: https://twitter.com/indoblue82/status/1274524402894471170
ARCHIVE (Tweet): http://archive.md/xUV7N
ARCHIVE (FB Post): http://archive.md/Jodfq
Shit's getting crazier by the day. (Assuming this is true and not some autistic fabrication)
 

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