Front Burner - Alleged gun-for-hire network behind consulate, synagogue shootings

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Toronto police announced this week that nearly 30 recent shootings across the Greater Toronto Area are linked by a multi-layered gun-for-hire network. They say teens have been recruited through encrypted messaging apps to carry out attacks, from targets linked to local tow truck and waste management disputes, to synagogues, Jewish schools and even the US consulate. In almost all the cases, they filmed the acts for proof of payment. Now police say they want to know who’s hiring them and how far this network spans.Abby O’Brien is a reporter at the Toronto Star who has been following Toronto organized crime networks and the recent news. She walked us through what we know so far.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S.C-A. Carguoros.com. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everybody, I'm Jamie Poisson. This week, Toronto Police held this news conference and announced that nearly 30 recent shootings across the greater Toronto area are linked to this multi-layered gun-for-hire network.

As far as these, we call themselves, or networks go, we believe there's multiple. The sharing of firearms is common. we have 21 different shooting incidents with the 45 caliber, six with the 9mm, and we don't believe that it's the same person pulling the triggers in each one. We believe that the firearms are being swapped around. Police say that a number of teens have been recruited through

encrypted messaging apps to carry out attacks, from targets linked to local tow truck and waste management disputes, to synagogues, to Jewish schools, and even the U.S. consulate. In order to get paid, they're required to film their attacks. Now police say that they want to know who is hiring them and how far this network actually spans. Abby O'Brien is a reporter at the Toronto Star who's been following Toronto organized crime networks in the recent news, and she's here to break down how all of these vastly different cases are connected and why young men are allegedly being paid to shoot for cash. Abby, hey, it's great to have you.

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. So you've been following a number of the shootings, police mentioned on Tuesday. details that a gun for hire network was involved started to really kind of surface publicly, at least, after an officer carrying out a raid last week was shot and killed in the line of duty. The investigation that led to the search warrant where police constable Mark, Minnesota was tragically killed, concerned a number of shootings, including a shooting at the United States consulate. A 19-year-old was arrested at the scene and sent a hospital in critical condition, I believe he is still in a medically induced coma.

We allege that Nicholas Bennett, 19 years of age of Toronto, shot and killed Toronto police service consul, Mark Pinozado. He will be charged with first-degree murder. And let's start there, shall we? Like, how did that raid begin to reveal this larger network that we're talking about today? Yeah, so shortly after the raids were executed, police confirmed that they were investigating a network of shootings, like you said, and linked it to the U.S. consulate.

So it took a few days for police to actually come out and kind of link some of the shootings that they consider to be connected to that network. We don't know exactly when police became aware of it, but we know it was sometime after a spot of shootings, three shootings in March. One of those shootings targeting a house in Oakville that was on March 29th.

On April 14th, Jayon Berger, 18 years of age of Barry, was arrested by Halton Regional Police Service in connection with a separate shooting in Oakville. While in custody, he was charged by the Toronto Police Service with multiple firearm offenses related to the March 26th shooting in Atobico. And when looking at that case and the shootings that they were investigating, they started to notice a pattern.

It was either often youth or young people were being hired to commit violent crimes or carry out shootings, often for very low sums of money, and often being asked to film the acts. So that was the case in the U.S. consulate shooting. And so Toronto police reviewed the surveillance footage of that shooting that morning. They noticed the gunmen had filmed it. And they launched a national security investigation into that shooting, which led them, we think, through ballistics to four other suspects. Eventually, they were able to connect this network, alleged network, to shootings across the G.

And police have said they believe the same guns were used repeatedly. in many of these shootings, but that they don't always know who pulled the trigger. Okay. And just to be clear here, that the man accused of shooting the police officer, Nicholas Bennett, he is not accused of also being involved in the U.S. Consulate's shooting. He's accused of being involved in other shootings that are part of this network. Am I right to say that? Yeah, that's correct. So Nicholas Bennett was part, a target of the raids that were executed on Thursday. and that was not looking just at the consulate shooting.

It was looking at this wider network. So Nicholas Bennett has been accused in two shootings. One in at a Markham and Eglinton apartment and another at an Atobico business, both in March. Okay. Okay, so there's lots going on here, lots of different shootings. And I want to go through just some of them with you, right? Because you have been following a string of attacks on the waste management company

GFL in recent months that some of these suspects are also connected to. GFL is responsible for people who don't know for most of Toronto's garbage and recycling collection. And just for a little background, can you take me through what has been happening with them? I know we could do an entire podcast just on this. Yeah. So GFL, like you said, is responsible through GFL and its subsidiary companies for Toronto's garbage and now recycling services. and for two years now they've been targeted in a series of attacks. So dates back to 2024. In September 2024, two executives linked to the company.

Their homes were shot up. And in March, York police are still looking for suspects after a late night shooting in Aurora that shattered the glass doors of this waste management building. We're live along Weston Road. We're in front of the business. This GFL hauling yard was struck by gunfire yet again. On Monday, a very similar set of circumstances.

It was about five in the morning. Police were called to this same yard. Again, it's GFL, their hauling yard, over reports of a shooting at that time. There was another series of shootings at the homes of executives tied to GFL as well. So that's GFL. And then there are also this string of shootings linked to the ongoing tow truck wars here in Toronto. We have covered them on the show before, I think. But it's been a while.

And just can you bring us up to speed on what's been happening on that front and how they are connected to all of this? Yeah. So right now, we don't know exactly what shootings in relation to the towing industry have been connected to this network. But we do know that an unspecified number of criminal cases caught the attention of prosecutors, investigators when they started to notice the same pattern that I just discussed the relatively low sums of money, the age of the people behind the guns. the request to film those acts. For those who don't know, maybe I'll just give a little bit of an explainer. The GTA's towing industry has long been rife with violence and corruption. It happens day in and day out on the GTA's roads and highways, a turf war battle involving Ontario's tow truck industry.

It all starts with a fight to clear collision scenes and sometimes scam drivers out of serious money. All that has escalated into criminal activity, now out of control. In 2024, Toronto police linked 13% of shooting to the towing industry. In 2025, Toronto police linked 15% of the shootings to towing industry. Youths as young as 15 allegedly recruited to commit violent acts as part of an ongoing tow truck turf war in the city. For years, the sector was largely unregulated, which kind of allows companies to quote unquote chase collisions.

So that's basically when trucks will race one another to crash. in hope of securing a toe, which is a very lucrative exercise for those of us who don't drive tow trucks. And over the last two years, industry violence has really been forced into the public eye. There were two homicides, one in 2024 and 2025 linked to the industry, a mass shooting at the Scarborough pub. Three masked men burst in and opened fire. One of the worst mass shootings this city has ever seen injuring 12 people. Police now say they've linked that attack to a rash of violence targeting the local tow truck industry. There was a series of foiled murder plots and in summer 2025. 20 people are facing more than 100 charges tonight after a multi-jurisdictional police

crackdown on a criminal network known as the union. Police say that network was well connected with the GTA's tow truck industry. As those cases were moving to the courts, That's when prosecutors and investigators kind of started to notice this pattern. Again, we don't know exactly what cases have been linked to the network, but we know that it has sort of infiltrated the towing industry. You mentioned before this network allegedly being paid low-sum. of money. Just like tell me more about that. Yeah. So from multiple sources and some of the court cases that we are following, we have heard sums as low as $600 and and repeatedly less than

$1,000 being offered for these jobs, which is significantly lower in the past and sort of reflects this kind of change in how we understand organized crime in recent years. I think where you might imagine traditional organized crime. You think of the quote-unquote mafia. In the past, you would need kind of a connection to these groups and a lot more money if you wanted to hire someone to carry out a crime or carry out a shooting. And now, as we've heard from the chief, the access that the internet has given and messaging platforms have allowed. And the decentralization of this network, it has become a lot easier to kind of contract those jobs.

What we are dealing with in this case and in other unrelated incidences is a recurring and similar modus operandi. And that is criminals for hire. Through encrypted messaging apps, young people are hired

to carry out attacks against various targets. I just do want to be clear about something you know, referring when we're talking about this network specifically, like our these young guys, you know, allegedly only being asked to shoot at objects, like buildings, like the consulate, or is it also people? So so far, the cases that police have confirmed

have only been shootings at buildings. So there have been no people injured in the shootings that they have come out and confirmed, but they have said that they're almost 30 shootings that they have connected to this network. And there's only a handful that they've actually specified what they are. So they're possible that there are victims, but we have not had that information confirmed to us. Right, right. And some of those buildings are also synagogues and Jewish schools. Just tell me a little bit more about what we know about what's been going on there. Yeah, absolutely. So when the chief came out and gave his press conference, he did specifically say that this network had been linked to shootings at synagogues and violence against the Jewish community.

Police have not yet come out and said which shootings, which synagogues or which incidences of violence. So we're still waiting for that confirmation on those specific incidences. We do know that in relation to the consulate shooting, US authorities have arrested a man named Mohamed Al-Saudi, who they say was caught on a phone conversation, taking credit for the U.S. consulate shooting, along with an unspecified number of Canadian synagogue shootings. According to an unsealed American criminal complaint,

the man, an operative of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said, our people were behind two attacks in Canada against the consulate and the Nesset, which the Americans believed referred to the consulate in Toronto and the synagogues. Again, so far, police here in Toronto have not linked these alleged network cases or the network itself directly to that U.S. case. Right, right. And just maybe we're mentioning here that FBI described this guy, al-Saudi, as a quote, high value target responsible for mass global terrorism, who was a senior member of Qatayib

Hisbullah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the IRGC, both of which have been designated by the U.S. government as foreign terrorist organizations. But, you know, we don't know that for sure. So I just, I want to. That's correct. That's the allegation for sure. And we have taken that back to police and our. waiting for them to comment on whether there is a connection to that ongoing U.S. case as well.

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Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. I just want to talk more about what we might know so far about how this network allegedly was working. Like how are they, how are these young people, these young guys getting recruited? Do we know anything about the middlemen here? How are the people hiring them, finding them, etc.? As we go kind of up the levels of this network,

the information gets a little less clear. Police have not come out and named a middleman. I don't think that they believe they said there's one middleman. I believe they said it's a multi-layer network, which would have, you know, different levels of responsibility within. We do know that a large amount of these conversations and these agreements are being made over encrypted third-party messaging apps,

which proves difficult for investigators for a number of reasons. So it seems that these apps and the conversations happening within them are facilitating the opportunity to carry out these agreements. Who is hiring them may very well depend on the shooting, the whatever shooting in question. And I think another interesting question is not just who is accessing this network to hire these people, but I think it's who's facilitating and keeping this network and this platform going and sort of making sure these services are accessible as well.

You know, the other thing that I thought was interesting was that there's not a lot of guns that have allegedly been used in this. Yeah. So I believe that they said that 30 shootings that they have linked to the net, network can be attributed to two handguns. The chief on Tuesday said that they're still looking into ballistics. So now that they've made a few arrests and they have seized those handguns, what they'll do is they will start looking at any shootings that they might believe to be connected to the network and collecting bullets from the scene or bullets they have collected from

the scene and looking for matches of ballistics on those incidences as well. These are alleged hits, right? And the way that they're operating is so different from how hit jobs or attacks like this would have been carried out in the past, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I think I touched on that a little bit, but I think it's this marked kind of separation or departure from what we understand as traditional organized crime. And I think we often, when you think of like, I think when we think of, like, I think when we think of, like, you know, a murder hit and assassination attempt. And you think of those big traditional organized crime groups. But the accessibility of these encrypted apps and the recruiting of

younger people and the monetized kind of aspect to it has kind of made that not necessary anymore. So you no longer need to know, quote unquote, organized crime group and you don't need to have, you know, $100,000 in cash. You may only need to have $1,000 in a bank account and somebody who has an end to a group chat. And that's a lot less of an ass than having an in with you know, an alleged hitman. And I think that proves difficult for investigators, too, because I think the investigative tools and the landscape of the investigation changes, like, a lot. It's not the same kind of intelligence heavy, you know, you know this crime group, you know, maybe who their associates are, you know what business they're associated with, and you can kind of start

mapping things out from there, whereas when this alleged network is kind of decentralized, there doesn't seem to be one group, or at least they have not come out and confirmed one group leading it or kind of running it. It doesn't really give that same starting point. And there's a lot of challenges in Canadian law in accessing evidence digitally, especially when that evidence is through a third-party app or a foreign company. And so I think that would put up a lot of obstacles and barriers in that sense. Yeah, I saw Toronto Police Chief Demkew brought up the the issue of, well, the fairly controversial bill C-22 or the Lawful Access Bill, which has come under a lot of fire for privacy concerns. I want to remind all levels of government of the importance of legislative reform, including key provisions in Bill C-16 and Bill C-22 on Lawful access.

If law enforcement does not have the tools needed to prevent violence, that is planned and paid for through encrypted messaging apps, it is all of us in our communities that suffer. Why is he connecting it to this case? Yeah. So in Canada, police have the ability to apply for warrants to track your phone, obtain like your phone data, so your call logs or the location of your phone, even wiretap, you know, your home or your car if they have permission from a provincial court, which is accessible in their town or city or province. All of that can be done without having your phone in their physical possession. What is more difficult for investigators is accessing messages or data from third-party apps

that are not in Canada or the companies who run them are not in Canada. So if they don't have somebody in custody and they haven't seized their phone and the evidence that they're seeking is property of a third-party or foreign company, say for instance, if they want to access Signal or signal. I think Signal was one of the apps that the chief mentioned that this network was operating through, that believed was operating through. If they want signal messages,

they'll have to apply for a warrant with the court of the relevant country. And that can be like a very long process and often delays investigations. And right now companies like Signal aren't required to retain certain metadata. So I think it's safe to say in this case, were signal and third-party messaging apps were at play, investigators would have a difficult time getting initial access to that evidence. We talked earlier about the kind of lowered threshold when it comes to hiring someone off

signal to do this sort of work. But what are the liabilities to it too? Yeah, I mean, I think there is when you're dealing with someone who is maybe not as experienced in the world of organized crime or who's not in the world of organized crime or who's not in the upper echelons of organized crime who is doing something for, as they believe, monetary reasons. And for relatively low sums of money, it kind of indicates to us that it's more out of necessity. You know, if you're doing something like that for $6 or $800, you probably need that $600 or $800 more than someone who's doing it for a large sums of money. And I think that hiring, you know, younger people or less sophisticated, if you will, members of

organized crime, you are, you know, risking a bit of exposure when someone gets arrested. They might not know. They might not have been taken care of their messages on their phone. Their phone might, you know, have a lot of information. They just might not be, you know, I don't want to say savvy because I don't want to attribute, you know, evading police as savviness. But I think I think you're opening yourself up to to error in a way that is not really been seen historically. Right. Right. Also, they might have. be holding onto a gun that can be traced to 20 different shootings. Yeah. Even with all of these connections being made, it does feel like we could just be at the beginning of sort of understanding

this complex crime wave. I'm just like trying to envision the whiteboard at like police headquarters, right? And just what are some of the things that you're going to be watching for as the investigation continues? Yeah. So I think you're totally right. I think we're kind of at the tip of the iceberg here. We've only been, you know, there's four, four shootings that they've, you know, kind of come out and confirmed linked to this network. I think as they start to, uh, or continue to investigate reporters and, and others will definitely be pushing to have more shootings confirmed, um, as part of this investigation. And then you can kind of look at those shootings and the circumstances around those shootings, um, who is involved, we've done reporting on some of those

shootings and we have a greater understanding of, of the circumstances that play. and that can kind of give a bit of information of maybe who is accessing the network, who is hiring. It might not, you know, pin it down to an individual, but it could pin it down to a certain group or a certain area of organized crime that we know exists here in Toronto, like example for GFL and towing. I would hope that they would come out because they have said that they believe specifically synagogues have been targeted, that they will come out and link it to specific synagogue shootings. so that can be a bit more, we can get a bit more detail. I know there's a lot of community members who are waiting and wanting a bit more detail. But yeah, as more shootings are confirmed, I think it will sort of expand that whiteboard map for journalists and for police as well. Yeah.

And I saw the Toronto Police Chief also talk about like this potential overlap with an ongoing police corruption investigation called Project South, right? so this could all sorts of directions that this could go in. Yeah, so he was asked about Project South, which for those who don't know, is an ongoing police probe that saw the arrest of 21 civilians and seven active Toronto police officers, one former retired constable, some of whom were accused of selling civilian information to facilitate violent crimes. And there is a shooter aspect. there's a group of shooters in that case who fit the description of what we're hearing.

Police have not come out and confirmed a link between that case and this network. But the chief did say at his press conference that the modus apparendi is being looked at in both cases is possibly the same. Abby, this is really interesting. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming by. Of course. Thank you for having me. All right. That is all for today. Front burner was produced this week by Matthew Almagher. Mackenzie Cameron, Bridget Stringer Holden, Joythe Schagupta, Kevin Sexton, Cece Armstrong, and Kirsten de Jager. Our YouTube producer is John Lee.

Our music is by Joseph Shabbison. Our senior producers are Imogen Burchard and Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McKay Blokos. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next week. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.