Front Burner - BONUS: Alleged RCMP spy case rocks intelligence services

Episode Date: September 21, 2019

Late last week, a director-general with the RCMP was arrested and charged with breaching Canada’s secrets law, for allegedly preparing to share a cache of classified intelligence material with a foreign entity or terrorist organization. Today on Front Burner, we speak with CBC reporter Catherine Tunney on what we know so far about what Ortis is alleged to have done, including his alleged contacts with a shady encryption company based in BC that was used by murderers and drug traffickers, and with former CSIS analyst Stephanie Carvin about what this could mean for national security.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi everyone. So just a note to say that we recorded this episode earlier in the week, but we had to blow it out because there was so much breaking news this week. But this is such an incredible story with very real potential consequences for Canada. So we're running it today as a bonus episode.

The RCMP, Canada's intelligence agencies, and even our international allies are currently grappling with the same troubling unknown. Just how many of our vital intelligence secrets are at risk? All because of one man accused of betraying the federal police from within. And this guy, well, the RCMP says he has access to a lot of secrets. The news of his arrest has shaken many people throughout the RCMP, particularly in federal policing. That was the RCMP commissioner speaking about Cameron Ortiz. He was the director general of a civilian RCMP intelligence unit. And on Friday, he was basically charged with planning to share government secrets.

Mr. Ortiz had access to information the Canadian intelligence community possessed. He also had access to intelligence originating from our partners, both domestically and internationally. His old bosses now say that Ortiz was in contact with the criminal underworld, a shady encryption company based in B.C. that was used by murderers and drug cartels around the world. Today, we'll get the details from the CBC's Catherine Tunney. She saw some secret documents that laid out the possible damage caused by Ortiz. It's not good.

And later, ex-CESAS analyst Stephanie Carvin will tell us just what this could mean for Canada's national security. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is FrontBurner. Hi, Catherine. Hi. Thanks so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. So this is a crazy story about some of the world's most carefully guarded secrets. And there's a lot that we don't know, so much so that we weren't sure if we could talk about this for 20 minutes earlier this week. But you have changed that for us. You got your hands on some documents. Thank you very much.

No problem. For your excellent journalism skills. So let's go through what we do know today. Tell me, who is Cameron Ortiz? Let's start here. Yeah, well, he's really been described as a rising star within the RCMP. We're still trying to get a sense of who the person is behind these charges. People who knew him and knew of his work say that he was really well known in the intelligence world. He was well respected. A lot of people, when we called them to ask them about this case, everyone seemed shocked. Everyone was stunned in Ottawa. And people that knew him back in

university also say like, this is the last person that you thought would be charged with this. In broad strokes, the allegations are that he obtained, stored, processed sensitive information, we believe with the intent to communicate it to people that he shouldn't be communicating it to. Other reports suggest that he was super close with Paulson, the last commissioner of the RCMP. He seemed committed to the cause, and that's not the kind of person that you expect to be charged

with preparing to pass on information. Of course he's charged. So let's talk for a minute about what he did at the RCMP. kind of person that you expect to be charged with preparing to pass on information. Of course, he's charged. So let's talk for a minute about what he did at the RCMP. What was his role there? Yeah, if you were a bad guy and you were trying to recruit a mole in the RCMP, you might have Cameron's face up on your wall. That's how well connected you were. This was the NFL of drafts if you wanted to get your hands on the top information.

Wow. So he, as we've said, he was the director general of this intelligence unit within the RCMP. And basically, I think a lot of people might think that, you know, the RCMP calls CSIS every day and then CSIS called CSC and they're all talking. That's not exactly what happens. Information is kind of shared just at the top levels of our intelligence agency. Very, very small circles of people. Yes, you want to keep that tight. So, you know, an officer, a constable on the street doesn't necessarily know the information that CSIS has.

And that's how our intelligence agencies work. And when you say, like, if you're a bad guy, and I would imagine sort of a foreign actor or two. Yeah, with a mustache and a hat on. Totally. And you've got all these photos of the people that you might want to try and, you know, get on your side and the Canadian government would not be a wall full of photos, right? No, even the this act that he's charged under the Security of Information Act, it only covers a small amount of people. We've been trying to get the number. They don't tell

us that information because that would kind of hint at how many people are covered by this. But some estimates are just that like only maybe a thousand people have this kind of clearance. And even within the RCMP, he'd be so top level. So a very small amount of people knew what he knew. Let's go over like what kind of secrets does this guy have access to? He had access almost to all the top secrets in Canada and a lot of secrets from our allies as well. So basically, his unit within the RCMP, the Coordination Centre, he would have had access to RCMP operations. He also would have known what CSIS and CSC,

so those are our two spy agencies, basically, they would have also shared information with him. to spy agencies, basically, they would have also shared information with him. And he also had access to our allied information. So information from our Five Eyes Alliance, that's the UK, the US, Canada, of course, Australia and New Zealand. And we have basically a free flowing stream of information. So when you say like operational information and information from our allies, are we talking about, you know, intelligence operatives? Sources who have been talking to us say that he would have known code names. He would have known about sensitive sources. Documents that we have are really concerned that he knew the methods of how our spies are doing their spying and their techniques and how our agencies work. And of

course, the whole point of being a spy is that you're not supposed to be revealed. Right. That's the whole point of the code name. And you don't want enemies to know how you work. Everyone is trying to figure out how everyone else is working. So you're trying to keep that under wraps. So he had access. He knew some of the techniques. He knew where the bodies were buried. That's the type of information that he had access to. So this sounds like a largely respected guy with a pretty extraordinary job. He had access to an extraordinary amount of information. And now he's been arrested and charged with these very serious crimes. Lots of questions this week. But, you know, as I mentioned at the top of this conversation, you got your hands on some documents. And tell us a little bit more about these documents. First, what are they?

Yeah, so they're basically briefing documents that were prepared after his arrest. They're partial documents. I was only able to look at some of the pages. And I probably should have been a little bit more chill about this. But they're so gobsmackingly interesting. I like at one point, I had to like cover my mouth and just go oh my god oh my god wow as I was reading them so basically there's a preliminary assessment that our spy agencies have done obviously happened just within the last few days since he was arrested on Thursday and and the assessment says that the information that he had access to quote goes to the heart of Canada's sovereignty and security so so. So important. Not surprisingly, the risk assessment right now is leveled or ranked at high. And high in capital letters.

Yes, in case you doubted it, high, all capital letters. And basically it says that, you know, if this information had gotten out, it could cause grave injury to Canada's national interests. We are aware of the potential risk to operations of our partner agencies in Canada and abroad, and we are working in partnership to ensure mitigating strategies are in place. We recognize that these allegations, if proven true, are extremely unsettling. If this had been leaked, it also could have led to the discovery of sensitive sources and methods with

grave consequences. Okay. I mean, we'll talk about this in a minute because, you know, spoiler alert, we don't actually know if he was successful or not. But these documents say he was involved with a company called Phantom Secure Communications. And so what is Phantom Secure Communications? Yes, this is a Canadian company and that was under investigation for basically providing encryption services to international crime groups. The U.S. Justice Department has charged the head of a Vancouver encryption company in taking part in a conspiracy to sell illegal narcotics around the world. So encryption, you know, I can send you a message, you can see it, but authorities can't get access to it. And it's all kind of garbled. And there's different ways of doing it.

And there's ways to do it that are above board and there are ways to do it that are below board. So basically, this company was accused of purposely offering services to crime groups so that people could organize like murders and, you know, smuggling drugs and very, very bad things. It was actually an FBI led investigation. In 2018, they kind of get this guy that they've been after named Vincent Ramos. They arrest him. And then through that investigation, they find an email on his computer where someone has written to him saying, you don't know me. I have information that I am confident you will find very valuable.

So cloak and dagger. Yeah, exactly. And then another email talks about how this person could provide intel about your associates and individuals using their network internationally. And from the documents that we've seen, and then based on the charges and the arrest, the authorities believe that that person was Cameron Ortiz who was reaching out. Okay, okay. So just to make sure I understand this, we've got this company called Phantom Secure Communications, and they were basically running this company before they got busted by the FBI, offering all of these encryption services to criminals. And when they bust it,

they find these emails that they trace back to Cameron Ortiz. And again, just to reiterate what we mentioned before, we don't know if he actually handed over this information to the guy who was running Phantom Secure Communications, right? No, this is obviously still charges. The case that they're trying to make is that he was doing the reaching out. Right. You know, I think when this case first broke, everyone's always questioning, like, why did someone do something like this? We're always looking for the motive. And, you know, I think people, I was getting like, oh, maybe he's being blackmailed.

We still have to find out what happens in the court case. But from these emails that we've seen, it appears that he was the one that was, you know, doing the flirting. Right. OK. And you can get charged with just, as you say, doing the flirting, right? Yeah. The charge sheet in itself tells an interesting story. So in 2015, he's charged with allegedly communicating operations, not with a foreign entity. It looks like it's someone

domestic. As one expert told me, like that could be, you know, telling your dentist secrets because because he would have been covered by this act, he had to take basically a lifelong oath that he would keep Canada's secrets secure. Okay, got it. The like some thousand people who are covered by this act. Because of what you know and what you do, you're covered under this act. Yeah. You're serving your country and you know a lot of stuff.

Yeah. And you got to keep your mouth shut. Exactly. Yeah. So in 2015, they are alleging that he did communicate some kind of operational information. We don't know what that is and we don't know who it is. Then there's a gap and then there's a slew of charges that pick up between September of 2018 until this month. So very recent.

And that has to do with preparing to give information over the preparing to give information. So it has to do with obtaining to give information over, preparing to give information. So it has to do with obtaining information and retaining. And that one is with the purpose of giving it to a foreign entity or a terrorist organization. Okay. And we don't know what that foreign entity or terrorist organization is, right? No, no. We tried to get questions out of the commissioner yesterday. Understandably, they're saying that the case is still ongoing. We're still going to have to wait for a lot of that information. Okay, okay.

And how could he have gotten this information out? Is it like taking this information and copying it onto a hard drive? Is it printing it out on a computer? Well, that I think is a big question that everyone, including our Five Eyes allies, have about this case. Officers did enter his condo last month as part of their investigation. They saw that he had access to a network that he was not supposed to have access to at home, and that he also was using basically this back door to get to the dark web. And that's noted

in some of the documents that we have. So basically, it's a program that you can use to hide your identity while you search the dark web, which, you know, basically were some of the worst wheeling and dealing online ago. So it sounds like he was trying to take steps to make sure that his identity was not revealed in this space. And we know that he had handwritten documents. They found this document in his room and it just said the project and it was underlined.

And there was. Yeah, it's just the project. This is going to be the title of a movie someday. I mean, I don't want to make light of this because it sounds like people's lives are at risk. No, it's very serious, but it is. This is what makes this case so interesting are some of the details and the access that he had. So on this document, there were instructions about how to wipe some of the information that he had, how to clear the metadata from PDFs, for example.

the information that he had, how to clear the metadata from PDFs, for example. So I think how that information ended up in his condo will be a big part of the investigation. It'll be a big question for our Five Eyes allies. We found out basically the day that the charges were laid that already the Five Eyes were sniffing around. Catherine you know you mentioned before everyone's trying to figure out why he might do this so so we have no sense of motive right now no nothing confirmed um you know Ottawa is basically like high school where everyone loves to gossip and speculate um but nothing on the record at the moment Brenda Lucky wouldn't answer questions about this. We know from some of the documents that back in 2013, he had a debt of over $90,000. That might suggest, you know, finances were part of the motivation, but it's still very unclear. Nothing confirmed about why he was doing this. I don't know. $90,000 doesn't seem like a ton of money to me.

Not, you know, again, don't want to get into speculation territory, but... If I had 90 grand on my credit card, I might be panicking. Yeah, I don't know. Anyways, possible that we'll see more charges coming too? Yeah, they've been very clear that this case is still ongoing. You know, some, as I've said before, some information was removed from the document. We know from talking to sources that it's been kind of hard for them to crack some of the encryption as well. That's long been a problem for the RCMP and other police forces as they try to investigate crimes online.

Yeah, so the door is still open to charges. The case is not closed and he's back in court on Friday. So hopefully we'll get some more information. Catherine, thank you so much for this. This is a wild, wild story. And I hope that you'll be back on the pod really soon, taking us through more details here. Yeah, sexy, sexy story. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Okay, so after talking to Catherine, I have some more questions just about the impact of all of this. You know, essentially, how big a deal is this? And for a few minutes, we're just going to call up Stephanie Carvin. She is a national security expert. She used to work at CSIS. And so let's get her up on the line now. Stephanie, hello.

Hello. Thank you so much for doing this. I always love talking about national security, so thank you. I know, and I'm sure this week you've been talking about it a lot. You yourself are an expert in this. You have tons of sources in the intelligence community. And I think what I need to understand here is how big a deal is this practically? The potential for this to be the

worst spy scandal in Canadian history is there. And there are people who are genuinely worried that this is something that could take years for the community to recover from, given the kinds of information that Mr. Oratis had to, and the amount of time that he was at the RCMP. So the reality is, I'm not even sure the community itself knows what it's dealing with yet. And it's very nervous. And when you say years to recover from, like, if this was a spy movie, and I was watching it, I think right now I would be seeing a bunch of people in cities all over the world, packing their bags, heading to an airport, because they could be compromised. And is that realistic? Like, is that what we're talking about here? Unfortunately, yes. Simply

because of the institution where Mr. Ortiz was. He was at this very unique, walled-off place within the RCMP. He was regularly coordinating with people who were involved in criminal investigations on very high-profile, you know, different missions, basically. He would have, in some ways, a friend of mine was calling it the crown jewels. Wow. Basically, the lifeblood of an intelligence service is sources and methods. And this person would have access to sources and methods. Do you know anything about what the RCMP is doing right now or any of our other intelligence agencies?

It's hard to say specifically. No one will share that with me. But the immediate need is to figure out just how much information was leaked over this period of time. They need to figure out how much of that was allied information so we can warn our allies about what, you know, if their missions are potentially compromised. But as well, I think, you know, in the bigger picture, they also need to figure out how did this happen? You know, normally people in these situations are subjects to rigorous security evaluations every five years. When they're recruited, they go through security evaluations.

So was there something that was missed? Was there a technical, was there some kind of technology or procedure that could have been used to have prevent this from happening? So I think these are the things they need to do. But there's no doubt in my mind the community itself is shaken. It will, of course, continue on. But the big picture here is that the intelligence and national security community has to operate on trust. You have to believe that the person you're working with has the best interests of Canada in mind. And when you find out someone you've trusted like that doesn't have that in mind, it's really, I think, disheartening.

Right. I do want to note, too, none of these allegations have been proven in court. You mentioned our allies and that they potentially have been compromised here as well. And like, what happens now? Do our allies turn off the taps? Do they stop sharing secrets with us? Should we be concerned about that? I think we have to be concerned about that. The context here is that Canada, of course, is an intelligence consumer. So in other words, we take in more intelligence than we give to our allies. So even, you know, I don't think they're going to turn off the taps. Frankly, U.S. security is guaranteed when Canada is safe, too. So they're going to make sure that we still have the information that we need. But even just a slowdown in the information that we're getting could be very detrimental to our

ability to do good policymaking and for our leaders to be able to make important decisions. So, you know, there's going to have to be a lot of reassurance. But I think there's another big picture here, which is that all of the Five Eyes have had recent scandals. There was, I remember a colleague of mine who once said, if you want to know what the CIA is thinking, just wait three days and it'll be in the New York Times. We're not the only country to have this problem, but I think the fact that we are an intelligence consuming nation means that we have to be a little bit more on guard about how we treat this exchange of information from the states we're closest with. We're not alone. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if our allies

have problems. We have to worry about ourselves. And here I worry that we failed. Okay. Stephanie, thank you so much for putting this into perspective for me. I really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. All right, so that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode and that you're having a good weekend. See you on Monday.