Mountie corruption probe saw undercover operation launched, cellphones tracked

Police used an undercover operation and cellphone and vehicle trackers in their investigation of a western Newfoundland RCMP officer whom they suspected to be involved in drug trafficking. 

Those details are contained in court documents filed last year and recently obtained by CBC News.

The filings provide new information on how the Mounties began an investigation into one of their own, Const. Michael Hann.

Responsibility for the probe was later taken over by the Serious Incident Response Team Newfoundland and Labrador, the province's police watchdog.

SIRT-NL announced in February that charges had been laid against Hann: possession of a controlled substance (cocaine) for the purpose of trafficking, unauthorized use of a computer, and breach of trust.

The allegations have not yet been tested in court. Hann, 55, is scheduled to enter a plea at provincial court in Corner Brook on May 30.

"Under Canadian law [Hann] remains presumed innocent of those charges unless and until he is found guilty by a properly constituted court of law," Hann's lawyer, Bob Buckingham, wrote in an email to CBC News.

"The Crown will be put to the usual proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard with respect to proving its case, and we will not be arguing the defence in the media or other public forum outside the court."

'Possible law enforcement corruption'

Previously unreleased details of the probe that ultimately led to Hann's arrest are contained in documents filed at provincial court in September.

At the time, investigators were asking a judge for permission to continue to hold onto Hann's cellphone, which they had seized three months earlier. 

The affidavit was in support of that request, which was necessary because charges had not yet been laid.

In the affidavit, Sgt. Marjorie Royal of SIRT-NL said the RCMP launched an investigation into cocaine trafficking on the west coast in May 2020 and discovered one of their own members was a suspect.

The investigation into Hann — dubbed Project Bliss — was handed over to SIRT-NL in November 2021, though some members from the RCMP continued as part of the investigative team assigned to the case. 

Royal wrote that police began getting confidential source information beginning in the spring of 2020 suggesting Hann "was involved with known drug traffickers in the Corner Brook area."

During a departmental security review that fall, Hann admitted to having personal relationships with people he suspected of being involved in drug trafficking but he committed to severing ties to keep his security clearance, Royal noted in the affidavit. 

However, the RCMP continued to receive information about his alleged involvement in drug trafficking, Royal wrote, and in January 2021 an investigation was launched "into possible law enforcement corruption."

Documents show the police got court approval to track cellphones and vehicles, and began an undercover operation with the assistance of the RCMP's anti-corruption unit in British Columbia. 

The undercover operation included more than 20 scenarios that included undercover operators ingratiating themselves with Hann and his girlfriend, the affidavit notes.

"Throughout the course of the [undercover] operation, Michael Hann was in social settings with known drug traffickers and he even introduced the [undercover] operators to some of them. The male [undercover] alluded to his own involvement in criminal activity but Michael Hann continued to socialize with him," Royal wrote. 

In late May 2022, according to court documents, Hann stored what an undercover operator told him was an ounce of cocaine in a backhoe on his property in Little Rapids, and told the undercover officer, "I didn't see or hear anything." 

Royal wrote in the affidavit that a tracker on Hann's phone showed he then called a relative, whom police believe may be involved in drug trafficking. 

"Michael Hann made no call to the detachment, a supervisor or the drug section, nor did he submit intelligence information or generate an investigative file," Royal wrote.

Hann's use of the RCMP database was also analyzed, Royal noted. It allegedly revealed that Hann searched the database for "queries which cannot be justified as having any law enforcement purpose," including searches of the undercover operator, persons of interest in the investigation, and suspected drug traffickers. 

According to the RCMP, Hann resigned his position this month. 

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