Peel Regional Police say key members of a Brampton-based criminal organization allegedly responsible several extortion incidents and staged car accidents are facing charges.

In a press conference on Monday, police revealed details of an investigation called Project Outsource which was launched in July 2024 after officers saw a sharp trend in violent extortion attempts and other criminal activity in the region.

Police allege Project Outsource found that the criminal network, which is allegedly tied to the tow truck industry, was operating with “two distinct but interconnected components: one dedicated to extortion and violence, and the other rooted in the towing industry.”

The force said several suspects were found to be associated with towing companies operating under the names “Certified Roadside” and “Humble Roadside.”

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“We have substantial evidence linking the group to dozens of staged accidents and potentially costing insurance companies between 80 and $100,000 for each staged accident,” said Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich with Peel Regional Police.

“In total, those fraudulent claims exceed $1 million for this particular investigation,” Milinovich continued. “To put that in perspective, fraudulent claims to the industry of insurance represent an equal amount to stolen cars, a cost which is then passed on to our community.”

On June 10, police said a woman from King City along with 17 men from Brampton were arrested following several coordinated search warrants in Peel and York regions, as well as in Toronto, involving more than 200 officers.

All 18 people face almost 100 charges including conspiracy, extortion, fraud, firearm-related offences, participating and instructing in a criminal organization and staging collision offences.

Police noted that almost half of the accused were on some form of a judicial release at the time of their arrest. Several of them were known to police.

Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said the two people who are believed to be responsible for leading the criminal organization are part of the arrests.

Over the course of Project Outsource, police said 18 tow trucks were seized with a total value of $2.8 million, five stolen vehicles were recovered worth more than $500,000, four personal high-end vehicles worth $840,000, six firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, as well as other various weapons such as crossbows, stun guns and baseball bats.

Project Outsource was created as a focused sub-investigation under the Extortion Investigative Task Force — created in 2023 in response to recent, sharp rise in violent extortion attempts targeting South Asian business owners, including demands for large sums of money, threats for non-payment, and acts of violence, including drive-by shootings.

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The Ontario NDP is calling on the RCMP to widen the scope of its criminal investigation into the Ford government’s Greenbelt dealings after a provincial watchdog determined that relevant documents were allegedly “permanently deleted” contrary to provincial law.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles is also acknowledging that the opposition parties at Queen’s Park may have “run out” of options to use official legislative channels to hold the government to account, even as more questions arise.

After a months-long battle with the Ford government over Greenbelt-related records, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) determined the Progressive Conservative party violated “legal record-keeping obligations” by using “opaque codewords” to discuss the controversial policy.

Patricia Kosseim also said her office was concerned enough about government documents that the IPC was forced to issue an order to retain them in full. Despite that, some records remain unaccounted for.

“We were pre-emptorily ordering the government to preserve all records and to recover emails that had been deleted, which they were able to and did and have since preserved all the records, except — as I said — those that were permanently deleted,” Kosseim told Global News.

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“We have no way of knowing the circumstances around that.”

It’s unclear, however, what, if any, consequences could arise from the permanent deletion of records.

While the RCMP has remained tight-lipped on its years-long investigation into the government’s decision-making, there have been few public signs of progress.

Meanwhile, the independent investigative bodies at Queens Park — the Integrity Commissioner, the Auditor General, and the Information and Privacy Commissioner — have all completed their Greenbelt investigations with varied impact.

“We’ve had a scathing report from the Auditor General. We’ve had a scathing report from the Integrity Commissioner. Now we have this report and these findings from the Information and Privacy Commissioner,” Stiles said.

“So to some extent, the tools here … we’ve run out.”

Stiles said the opposition is now looking to the RCMP’s Sensitive and International Investigations unit — which typically investigates allegations of financial crimes like fraud, corruption and procurement as well as complaints related to illegal lobbying activities and elected officials — to look deeper into the IPC’s findings.

“The commissioner is very clear, laws were broken here,” Stiles said. “The last time a government was found to be permanently deleting emails like this around an issue that is contentious … somebody went to jail.”

In 2018, the former chief of staff to then-Premier Dalton McGuinty was sentenced to four months in jail after an Ontario judge found he directed the indiscriminate wiping of hard drives in the premier’s office in a deliberate effort to protect the office after the Liberal government decided to scrap two gas plants ahead of the 2011 provincial election.

Stiles is also calling for a public inquiry into the scandal.

“I certainly think that a matter like this, just like with the gas plant scandal, would merit a public inquiry,” Stiles said, but acknowledged that the chances of a majority government calling an inquiry into its own actions is unlikely.

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The provincial and federal governments quietly signed a fresh Ontario affordable housing deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars after months of tense back-and-forth and threats to scrap the funding altogether.

Shortly after Doug Ford’s new cabinet was sworn in March and with Mark Carney installed in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ottawa and Queen’s Park signed off on a deal to work together on new housing.

Details of the need to sign the new agreement were contained in a handover binder prepared for Ontario’s new housing minister in March and recently obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws.

The same agreement had caused months of grief the previous year as two housing ministers traded barbs, accusations and threats.

Last year, the federal and provincial housing ministers clashed repeatedly over the National Housing Strategy – a bilateral, long-term agreement to build affordable housing.

The fund provides money to provinces for their affordable housing strategies. It is designed to run for 10 years, with milestones to renew the funds.

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Then-Canadian Housing Minister Sean Fraser wrote to his Ontario counterpart, Paul Calandra, in March 2024 to demand “urgent” action on his affordable housing plan, accusing Ontario of failing to deliver thousands of new units.

The letter kicked off back-and-forth jabs, where Ottawa rejected Ontario’s various affordable housing plans, claiming it was refurbishing old units and not building new ones. The federal government said it would withhold $357 million in fresh funding until it was satisfied.

The federal government eventually said it would sidestep Ontario and give the money straight to local service managers in the province instead. At the time, Calandra said that was exactly what he wanted.

“For weeks, we’ve been saying, ‘It is distributed through our service managers,’” he said in May 2024.

“Now, the big, bad federal Minister of Housing is going to punish Ontario. Do you know how? By distributing the money the same way we have done it for the last 35 years: through our service managers.”

After the snap winter election, Calandra was shuffled from housing to education, while Fraser is now the justice minister.

A briefing binder prepared for incoming Ontario Housing Minister Rob Flack in March 2025 said one of the first decisions he would have to make would be to sign off on a new federal-provincial agreement to ensure affordable housing dollars continue to flow.

“Ministry staff are reviewing federal input and will bring forward options for the Action Plan for Minister’s decision following the election,” the briefing binder, accessed via freedom of information laws, said.

Sometime in March, the two governments came to an agreement.

“The National Housing Strategy (NHS) bilateral agreement signed with Ontario runs from 2019/20 to 2027/28,” a federal spokesperson said.

“The targets and outcomes for funding available under the agreement were mutually agreed upon in March 2025 through a three-year Action Plan for 2025/26 to 2027/28. This ensures the continued availability of federal funding for Ontario.”

Flack’s office indicated he wanted to reset the relationship with his federal counterpart after a tense year. The latest agreement will prioritize rent-assisted units, according to the Ontario government.

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