USB key found at Ortis's apartment contained details of money-laundering probe, jury told

Police found a trove of intelligence documents on an encrypted USB key at former RCMP intelligence director Cameron Ortis's Ottawa apartment, Ortis's trial heard Thursday.

The Crown said the documents included details of a Mountie probe of an alleged money-laundering scheme linked to people to whom Ortis is accused of leaking secret information.

Ortis, 51, is accused of three counts of sharing special operational information "intentionally and without authority" and one count of attempting to share special operational information. He also faces two Criminal Code charges: breach of trust and unauthorized use of a computer.

Ortis has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

On Thursday, Crown prosecutor Judy Kliewer questioned RCMP Sgt. David Proulx, who helped go through the contents retrieved from Ortis's apartment. Proulx said police covertly entered Ortis's home in the summer of 2019 and returned after his arrest in September of that year.

According to the agreed statement of facts, investigators seized numerous devices there, including five laptop computers, five external hard drives, 10 memory keys and three cell phones.

They also found a Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) — essentially an encrypted USB — which officers were partially able to decrypt. 

On the USB was a folder called "The Project," which contains much of the evidence being presnted in court.  Sub-folders under the heading "Bootstrap 4," contained intelligence the Crown alleges Ortis leaked to associates of a money laundering network.

Some of the documents in the folders contained RCMP intelligence and reports from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), Canada's national financial intelligence agency.

In her opening remarks to the jury, Kliewer said that in 2015, the Five Eyes alliance — an intelligence sharing network made up of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand — had identified a common international threat: a money laundering network headed by Altaf Khanani.

One of the RCMP reports on the USB key found at Ortis's apartment said intelligence suggested there were "a number of likely lower-level coordinators based in Canada that act as agents of Khanani."

"These lower-level coordinators would operate for the larger Zanella money laundering network by placing and layering funds from Canada," it said, naming one Muhammad Ashraf as an individual "of particular interest to the RCMP." The agreed statement of facts says Ashraf and his company Finmark Financial were under investigation in Canada.

Other documents show police had eyes on possible links to Khanani's network: Farzam Mehdizadeh, who at the time was living in Toronto and was running Aria Exchange, and Salim Henareh, who was under investigation along with his companies Persepolis International and Rosco Trading.

Ortis is accused of sharing special operational information with Ashraf and Henareh and of trying to share information with Mehdizadeh. According to the agreed statement of facts, Mehdizadeh fled the country before his anticipated arrest in 2017.

Henareh's lawyer Barry Fox told CBC News the allegations against his client "have been fully investigated by the RCMP and he has been completely exonerated."

'You are on a CSIS watch list'

One of the documents on "Bootstrap 4" was titled "Aria Exchange – Money Laundering Network," Proulx said.

That document said over the course of 10 years, Mehdizadeh had been the subject of 48 suspicious transaction reports from financial institutions for various indicators of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Proulx said some of the folders contained what appear to be notes outlining ways to approach contacts with information.

"10k for the package? Maybe. But perhaps use this as material that could lay the ground work for future business relationship," said one note.

"Say something to the effect that, 'I understand you to be a careful man.'"

Under "Notes to Farzam" the writer wrote "you are on a CSIS watch list."

 "You (Aria Exchange et al) are targets of DEA/RCMP investigation, the ultimate goal is to get to Khanani and a few others," the notes say.

Proulx said the USB also contained a folder, Bootstrap 1, with files the Crown says Ortis sent to Vincent Ramos, the head of a Canadian company the RCMP was investigating for selling encrypted phones to organized crime. One of the emails already presented to the jury shows the sender was asking Ramos for $20,000 in exchange for more information.

Under cross-examination by Ortis's lawyer Jon Doody, Proulx said there a team was assigned to go through Ortis's finances.

Proulx said there's no evidence that Ortis ever received payments from the people he allegedly contacted.

Crown says not much of the case is in dispute 

The USB also included a file of email address and passwords Kliewer said Ortis was using to covertly contact criminals to offer to sell them information.  

On Wednesday, the Crown presented emails from an account called "variablewinds" that was exchanging messages with Ramos. That name was included on a document found on the USB with the password "ontario_sucks_57."

Proulx said another uncovered email, "blindbat@mailbox.org," sent messages to Ashraf and Mehdizadeh's son. 

Its password was "awful_terrible_Ottawa_crap_62."

Kliewer has told the jury there is not much in dispute in this case except for the question of whether Ortis had authority to do what he did.

Ortis's lawyers have not yet mounted their defence. Outside of court, Ortis's lawyer Mark Ertel told reporters his defence team believes it can prove he had the "authority to do everything he did."