'I'm the bump operator': Meeting the undercover players in the Greg Fertuck sting

The undercover officer introduced himself on the stand as "the bump operator" and said his job was to make accused killer Greg Fertuck like him enough to take the first step into the Mr. Big sting.

"The ability to bond and rapport build with somebody is crucial," he testified Wednesday at Greg Fertuck's first-degree murder trial for the killing of his wife, Sheree Fertuck.

"Targets tend to like me."

A court-ordered publication ban prohibits revealing any details that may identify the undercover officers in the Fertuck sting testifying in a courtroom at Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatoon.

This officer made self-deprecating jokes about his own age and appearance that had people in the gallery giggling, saying he preferred jeans and cowboy boots over the suit he wore to testify, and he spoke about scrambling over the course of a single weekend to find ways to make Greg want to come work for him.

"If we cannot find a way to approach the target, it won't work," he testified.

The bump

The officer is a senior member of F Division with the RCMP in Saskatchewan. He testified that he's been involved in hundreds of scripted scenarios in a variety of stings since 2008.

The officer who designed the sting on Greg testified that he tapped this officer to make initial contact because of his "happy and jovial nature."

RCMP baited the hook in early summer of 2018 by having Greg and his girlfriend Doris win a rigged draw at a bar in Saskatoon, the prize being a weekend trip to Canmore, Alta.

Greg did not know that the contest winners from Manitoba and Alberta were all undercover officers. The officer who testified Wednesday was paired with a young woman who played his daughter. They were the Alberta winners and met their counterparts in Canmore.

"I jumped in the vehicle with Greg and Doris and started cracking jokes about how this was probably some timeshare scam," he said.

"We talked hunting and fishing, and Greg made some jokes about Doris getting waxed."

The officer said that Greg's graphic jibes against women emerged that first weekend and became a consistent theme through the ten-month sting. When not bragging about his sexual shenanigans with Doris and another young woman he had on the side, he was denigrating everyone from servers to sex workers.

He also showed a willingness to work outside the province because that meant "strippers and lobster tails," the officer testified.

Scenario 12

The officer testified how the weekend ended with Greg and Doris agreeing to meet their new friends back in Saskatoon for a Shooter Jennings concert. The officer's fake daughter was supposedly attending the U of S, so he had a reason to be in the city.

"We knew we were in a little better spot than when we started," he testified.

"I put a lot of hooks in the water."

The breakthrough came in scenario 12, the evening of the concert. The officer, his daughter and her future husband — also an undercover officer — met Greg and Doris at the Shark Club bar.

"He [Greg] gave me a tan beaver pelt, made a sexual reference and then said 'You should hire me, I can work 15-hour days'," he testified.

The officer did not immediately agree. Rather, he took a staged phone call from another operative later that night, which created a job opening.

"Can you help me tomorrow," he testified that he asked Greg.

"I'm your man," he replied.

Mr. Big by the numbers

Earlier on Wednesday, the officer who designed the operation testified that the RCMP spent $679,292 on the Mr. Big sting that it ran on Greg.

Project Fisten came in $145,395 over budget, largely because of overtime costs associated with multiple officers working evenings, weekends and holidays during the operation than ran between 2018 and 2019, he testified.

The overtime bill came to $329,829, or $153,000 more than budgeted.

Greg was charged with Sheree's murder in June 2019 after he disclosed to undercover police posing as criminals that he shot her twice and then dumped her body in a rural area northeast of a gravel pit near Kenaston, Sask. Her body has never been found.

Justice Richard Danyliuk, who is presiding over the judge-alone trial, must determine the admissability of Greg's admission and other evidence. He's assessing it in a "global voir dire", or trial within a trial.

Cross examination

Defence lawyer Mike Nolin cross-examined the officer, asking whether there was any pressure to get a confession in an investigation that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I feel pressure to get the truth at the end of the day," he testified.

"There was never pressure to get a confessions, there was no pressure to get a result one way or another. Get the truth."

Nolin suggested that Mr. Big stings are a problematic tool because officers are basing their entire scenario on a lie. The undercover officers approached Greg pretending to be criminals.

"Yes, there are lies told to the subject," the officer replied.

Nolin cast into doubt what Greg disclosed to the undercover officers, suggesting that Greg told a raft of lies to them.

They included claiming that he'd brutally assaulted a prostitute (he did not); that he wanted to kill a man in Saskatoon (he was never located); that he'd been attacked and beaten in a Vancouver hotel room (he was not); and that he was medically cleared to work for the criminal gang after a head injury (he was not).

Nolin also honed in on issues around Greg's memory. He slipped and cracked his head outside a Saskatoon bar on Jan. 1, 2019, and spent a month in hospital in the middle of the sting.

The officer testified that operatives had to re-run a number of scenarios, or scripted interactions, from prior to the injury.

For instance, Greg did not remember taking trips to Medicine Hat. They repeated a retirement party for a fake gang member, re-did a scam involving stolen passports and re-introduced a character who purportedly cleaned evidence from crime scenes.

Nolin also quizzed the officer about interactions between Greg and operatives that were not recorded.

These included the contest portion of the sting before the trip to Banff and Canmore, and discussions in airports, strip clubs and hot tubs.

The trial began on Sept. 7 and resumes Thursday with the bump operator returning to the stand.