TORONTO (AP) — Seven Toronto police officers and one retired officer have been arrested and charged in an organized crime investigation involving bribery, conspiracy to commit murder and drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday.
Police officials at a news conference said the officers had collected personal and private information unlawfully and distributed it to organized crime figures, in some cases for bribes, and that mobsters then carried out shootings and other violent crimes.
“This is a painful and unsettling moment,” Toronto Police Chief Myron Myron Demkiw said. “When organized penetrates the Toronto Police Service the harm goes far beyond the immediate wrongdoing.”
York Police Deputy Chief Ryan Hogan said the investigation began in June when police uncovered a murder plot involving a corrections management employee who was being targeted by mobsters. He said the suspects had passed information to the mobsters about the employee.
Several suspected mobsters went to the corrections manager’s home for the purpose of murdering him, but encountered a separate contingent of police officers who were protecting the employee and who arrested the suspected mobsters after they rammed a police car, Hogan said.
Demkiw said the officers who were suspected of wrongdoing have been suspended and that he’s seeking suspension without pay for at least four of them.
York Regional Police Chief Jim MacSween said it was a “deeply disappointing and sad day” for police.
“This investigation also underscores the insidious corrosive of organized crime. It highlights how these criminals find a way even the most well protected institutions across our society.”
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