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Agence France-Presse

A former high-ranking Canadian police official was found guilty Wednesday of leaking secrets to criminal organisations in a case that convulsed the country’s intelligence community.
Cameron Ortis, 51, was director general of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) national intelligence coordination unit until his arrest in 2020.
He was accused of using his position to access sensitive information from Canada and the powerful Five Eyes intelligence alliance – which also includes Australia, the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
He then tried to sell the information to individuals linked to money laundering schemes for Canada-listed terrorist groups.

He also tipped off an individual about an undercover officer targeting one of his associates in Vancouver, which the prosecution said put the undercover cop at risk.
Ortis was found guilty of four counts of leaking and trying to sell special operational information, as well as unauthorised use of a computer and breach of trust.
‘Potentially devastating’: Canada’s spies brace for worst after security breach
His bail was revoked until a sentencing hearing scheduled for January 11-12.
Prosecutor Judy Kliewer said the Crown would seek “a very lengthy prison term”. The penalties for each of the six counts range from five to 14 years.
This was the first ever trial under Canada’s Security of Information Act, and many of the details surrounding the case could not be divulged due to national security concerns.
The defence had sought to paint Ortis as a patriot and a dedicated member of the RCMP who acted “to confront a grave threat to Canada”.
But Kliewer urged the jury in closing arguments not to believe him when Ortis claimed “that his criminal, self-motivated acts were aimed at some lofty and secret purpose”.
According to redacted transcripts of Ortis’ testimony, given behind closed doors for security reasons, he received a mysterious tip from a foreign agency in late 2014.
That led him on a secret mission to use intelligence to lure criminal targets into adopting an encrypted service set up to eavesdrop on their communications.
The tip, he said, included credible information about a national security threat that he had been instructed not to share with anyone as there was concern about a possible mole within police ranks.
The prosecution and defence agreed that Ortis sought to sell secrets to four targets of police investigations including Vincent Ramos, the chief executive of a Canadian company that provided encrypted mobile phones to crime groups, for C$20,000 (US$14,500).
The jury only had to decide whether he had been authorised to share the information.
Witnesses including Ortis’s former boss, RCMP assistant commissioner Todd Shean, testified that Ortis was never meant to go undercover or reach out to targets of police investigations.


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Canada

Canada ex-police intelligence official Cameron Ortis convicted of leaking secrets

Cameron Ortis was director general of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) national intelligence coordination unit. File photo: AP

Crown prosecutor Judy Kliewer. Photo: AP

‘Potentially devastating’: Canada’s spies fear worst after theft of classified information by RCMP official Cameron Ortis

Cameron Ortis, director general with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's intelligence unit, in a court sketch. Photo: Reuters

(FILES) In this file photo taken on September 11, 2019 Liberal Party leader and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference at Rideau Hall in Ottawa - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 17, 2019 sought to reassure Canada's allies over security after a senior police intelligence officer was accused of stealing highly classified materials that, if released, could be "potentially devastating."Cameron Ortis served as the director general of national intelligence coordination for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) before his arrest last September 12, 2019. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)

Arrested Canadian intelligence official Cameron Ortis had access to allies’ secrets, head of police agency says

Cameron Ortis, director general with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s intelligence unit, is shown in a court sketch from his hearing in Ottawa on Friday. Image: Lauren Foster-MacLeod via Reuters

Top Canadian intelligence official and East Asia expert Cameron Ortis arrested on spying charges

Canada’s police agency has alleged a top security official tried to disclose classified information to a foreign entity. Photo: Reuters

US counterterrorism analyst charged after leaking Chinese missile secrets to journalist he dated

Henry Kyle Frese, 30, was arrested by the FBI when he arrived at work at a DIA facility in Virginia. He was charged with wilfully disclosing national defence information. Photo: AP

(FILES) This file photo taken on April 21, 2017, shows an aerial image, from a Philippine airforce plane, of Subi Reef in the South China Sea and claimed by China. - General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on May 29, 2019, that Chinese President Xi Jingping reneged on promises not to militarize the South China Sea and called for "collective action" to hold Beijing responsible. "The fall of 2016, President Xi Jinping promised President Obama that they would not militarize the islands. So what we see today are 10,000-foot (3048-meter) runways, ammunition storage facilities, routine deployment of missile defense capabilities, aviation capabilities, and so forth," he said in a talk on US security and defense at the Brooking institution. (Photo by TED ALJIBE / AFP)

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Former RCMP intelligence official could face a ‘very lengthy prison term’ after being found guilty of breaching Canada’s secrets law
Cameron Ortis, 51, had access to highly sensitive domestic and foreign intelligence before his arrest in 2020


Cameron Ortis, 51, had access to highly sensitive domestic and foreign intelligence before his arrest in 2020,


Espionage