Toronto police’s ‘largest international drug takedown’ secured zero convictions, prosecutors confirm

It was all over in a few minutes.

A sprawling, six-month police investigation — which spanned the continent, drew on international police agencies and netted a “staggering” $61 million in illegal drugs — came undone suddenly as, one by one, 10 alleged players nabbed in Toronto’s largest international drug takedown were unceremoniously released.

“All the accused are free to go,” Ontario Court Judge Russell Silverstein told a court during a brief proceeding inside Old City Hall Monday morning. “The charges against you have been stayed at the request of the Crown.”

The development was the final blow to “Project Brisa,” the cross-border investigation that police said brought down an international drug importation and distribution network. Investigators said they’d uncovered a sophisticated system that allowed mass quantities of drugs from Mexico to be smuggled into Canada through a hidden compartment inside transport trucks; Spanish for “breeze” the probe’s name was a nod to investigators’ first seizure, found in a truckload of hair dryers.

In spite of the evidence laid out for display at a June 2021 press conference — mountains of cocaine, crystal meth and marijuana — not one of the 182 charges laid against 20 people stuck, the Star has confirmed.

“No convictions were entered for any accused in Project Brisa,” a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said.

That includes Jason Hall, the Surrey, B.C. man dubbed the “Trap Maker” who was facing charges including conspiracy to commit an indictable offence for allegedly installing the hidden compartments inside tractor-trailers. Court records show Hall’s charges were stayed in August.

Two men also wanted in Project Brisa, meanwhile, were not arrested and are no longer wanted on those charges, Toronto police said Friday.

What, exactly, caused the collapse of the largest drug investigation in Toronto police history was not detailed by Crown lawyers in court on Monday, according to a transcript of the proceedings. Prosecutors are not required to say why they pull the plug on cases and legal experts say there are multiple reasons they often can’t, ranging from preserving other ongoing probes to protecting criminal informants.

“The Crown has an ongoing obligation in every case to assess reasonable prospect of a conviction and the public interest. In this case, the Crown determined that a stay of proceedings was required,” a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), said in a statement.

“The PPSC has nothing further to provide.”

But the lack of explanation has prompted questions about how such a large and widely publicized investigation — announced with fanfare in 2021 by Toronto police at a press conference and YouTube videos — can quietly end with no rationale.

“It’s essential that the public get some clear message delivered from Crown prosecutors as to why they’re staying proceedings and not going forward with criminal prosecution,” Michael Kempa, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, said in an interview.

“That demystifies the process for the public,” he said, adding that members of the public don’t need the full details but would benefit from a broad or generic explanation.

In a complex investigation such as Project Brisa there may be multiple factors that lead to a stay of proceedings, ranging from potential delay to disclosure concerns, said Harval Bassi, a Toronto lawyer representing two people charged in the case — and who nonetheless said Monday’s development came as a “surprise.”

“I can see why the public would be concerned about the collapse of a major case,” Bassi said, but added that the prosecutors involved are experienced “and a lot of thought process went into their decision making.”

Ravin Pillay, another defence lawyer involved in the case, said sometimes the prosecution is legally obligated to withhold reasons for terminating a criminal proceeding. In these circumstances, “the public’s right to know, indeed important to maintaining confidence in the administration of justice, must yield to the greater interests that the law seeks to protect.”

Threats to the integrity of police practices or risks of harm to individuals involved in the case may be among the reasons prosecutors stay mum, said Matt Torigian, a former Waterloo police chief and ex-deputy solicitor general. Nonetheless, Torigian said, “many of us have long called for greater transparency and greater accountability in the courts by some of the judicial actors, much like we see with police.”

Torigian said the validity of the evidence presented to the Crown — including how the seizures were conducted, the execution of search warrants and the credibility of informants — has to stand up to the judicial test. Information that was originally presented to the Crown as reliable can sometimes “change its character, its relevance or in fact its validity,” Torigian said. “The police are not the only actors in this scenario.”

But when a case is not taken to trial and the Crown doesn’t explain why, the conduct of police — good or bad — goes unchecked, said Kate Puddister, an assistant professor and police accountability researcher at the University of Guelph. Because the Crown does not have to explain why it isn’t prosecuting the case, “we can only speculate the reasons why and if it has anything to do with the police investigation,” she said.

“If the decision to halt the prosecution is because of the police conduct during the investigation, without bringing these issues to light it makes it difficult to provide public accountability and oversight,” she said.

Project Brisa’s collapse comes as Toronto police have come under fire over the collapse of other serious criminal cases.

On Wednesday, an Ontario judge stayed drug trafficking charges against a self-admitted cocaine dealer after he found Toronto police stole $6,000 from the drug dealer’s apartment. In January, three gun cases were tossed by Ontario judges or resulted in acquittal because of police conduct: one because of police delays “bordering on negligent,” another over an unwarranted no-knock raid and the third due to racial profiling.

Stephanie Sayer, a spokesperson for Toronto police, said the force can’t speak to the reason behind the decision to stay the Brisa charges but said officers “worked closely with the prosecution on this very complex case, and continue to do so.”

Asked if Toronto police were concerned about the string of recent cases where police conduct resulted in serious charges being dropped, Sayer said “any suggestion that parallels can be drawn between the reason for the decision on (Project Brisa) and any other cases would be speculation.”

Antonietta Raviele, a Toronto defence lawyer and former Crown, said the public should take comfort in knowing that prosecutors opted not to continue to trial precisely because it was a high-profile case — that fact could have brought added pressure to proceed.

Even in a case like this, the Crown won’t continue a prosecution just for the sake of doing it, she said.

She added: “They still got the drugs, they still got the money.”

Torigian, the former Waterloo police chief, said in the aftermath of a case collapsing there should be a debrief to examine where things fell apart and why, so that they’re not repeated.

Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis

Jason Miller is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering crime and justice in the Peel Region. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic

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