Was Nova Scotia mass killer an RCMP agent?

An investigative team for Macleans magazine that includes former Hamilton Investigative journalist Paul Palango, has raised troubling questions about a possible relationship between mass killer Gabriel Wortman and the RCMP as well as organized crime. The reporters obtained a video that shows Wortman travelling to a Brinks depot and picking up a bag containing $475,000 about a month before he went on the shooting and arson rampage that left 22 people dead.

According to the article, the withdrawal of $475,000 in cash matches the method the RCMP uses to send money to confidential informants and agents. The article reads, “Sources in both banking and the RCMP say the transaction is consistent with how the RCMP funnels money to its confidential informants and agents, and is not an option available to private banking customers.”

At the same time as Wortman had a possible relationship with the RCMP, something the Mounties deny, the reporters say he had relations with the Hells Angels and a man connected to Mexican drug cartels. The story says Wortman was friendly with a Portapique neighbour linked to Mexican drugs, who provided Wortman with the RCMP decals for Wortman’s fake RCMP cars, from a print shop where he worked.

One of the story sources says Wortman could not have been a run-of-the-mill informant because of the size of the cash transaction. The story suggests Wortman would have been an agent, which is a higher order of informant.

In an editorial released today Macleans senior writer Paul Wells calls for a full judicial enquiry into the killings and any relationship Wortman might have had with the police force. Paul Palango is an investigative journalist who has worked for the Hamilton Spectator and the Globe and Mail. He has written several books on crime and policing. In Hamilton in the 1990’s he was one of the first journalists to report critically on Phillip Environmental, at a time when local and national business reporters were lauding the company as a Canadian success story. The company slapped him with an $11 Million lawsuit not long before it collapsed in a sea of misstated financial documents that left shareholders holding the bag with worthless stock.