Toronto police have obtained seven new search warrants in their ongoing investigation of Rob Ford and others, including one for an iPhone belonging to the mayor’s friend and occasional driver, Alexander “Sandro” Lisi.

The new warrants were revealed in Superior Court Tuesday in a document showing police have obtained 27 judicial authorizations related to Project Brazen 2, including ones for cellphone records and tracking devices.

Investigators obtained the search warrant for Lisi’s iPhone and an “assistance order for Apple Inc.” last October to help police access data stored on the device, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Police seized the iPhone when they arrested Lisi last Oct. 1 at an Etobicoke strip mall and charged him with several drug-related offences.

The source said investigators would likely have to take the phone to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., in order to break the iPhone’s passcode and access data stored on the device. The Star does not know if this has occurred.

Apple spokeswoman Tara Hendela declined to comment when asked about her company’s involvement in the investigation.

The warrants related to Lisi and the iPhone are among seven newly revealed judicial authorizations granted to police between October 2013 and January 2014. The others include authorizations for police to obtain call records from Bell, Rogers, Telus and Wind Mobile.

The seven new warrants are included on a chronological list of all judicial authorizations granted to police dating back to June 2013. The list was provided by a federal Crown attorney Tuesday in Superior Court where the Star and other media outlets were seeking public access to several sealed search warrants related to Project Brazen 2.

Justice Ian Nordheimer agreed to lift the sealing orders on a series of warrants, including one granted on Nov. 29 and another granted on Jan. 14 to obtain telephone records from Rogers. But the unsealed documents will be made available only to provincial and federal Crown attorneys for the time being so they can determine whether redactions are necessary before the materials are released publicly.

Media lawyers will appear again before Nordheimer on March 5 to make arguments for the public release of the search warrants.

“We had a productive meeting with the provincial and federal Crowns and they are going to review the materials between now and March 5 and we’re hopeful we’re working toward an early resolution of these issues,” said Ryder Gilliland, a lawyer representing the Star.

The Star and other media are also seeking access to three additional search warrants referenced in a 500-page request made last October by police to search the home of Lisi, who is currently facing drug charges and an extortion charge related to attempts to obtain the now infamous “crack video” featuring Ford. Those search warrant applications targeted Lisi’s vehicles and his cellphone records, among other things.

The seven new search warrants — all subject to sealing orders — show that the investigation of the mayor and several of his associates has continued in earnest since police filed their application to search Lisi’s home.

On Oct. 9, just seven days after police applied to search Lisi’s home, a judge granted a request to search Lisi’s iPhone.

Twelve days later, on Oct. 21, police obtained an assistance order for Apple Inc.

Digital security expert Daniel Tobok said the large memory capacities in today’s smartphones means text messages, videos and photos can be retrieved even if the user has deleted them. When a text message is deleted, for example, the information simply moves to a different part of the memory, he said.

“The only caveat is that it depends on the user. If you have a heavy user, say someone sending 1,000 messages a year, the chances of retrieving text messages becomes slimmer compared to someone who sends 500 messages per year,” said Tobok, managing director of forensics at Telus Security Solutions.

“Can you retrieve data? Absolutely. Can you define how much you can retrieve? Not until you look at the phone and see what kind of phone, how much memory, and so on.”

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On Nov. 29, police obtained a search warrant for seven cellphones and “1 computer from Traveller.” Project Traveller was a massive year-long guns-and-gangs operation in northern Etobicoke.

It was in early 2013 when detectives working on Project Traveller heard wiretap conversations between alleged gangsters talking about Ford smoking drugs and appearing in a video in which the mayor appears to be smoking crack cocaine. Project Brazen 2, the probe of the mayor and several of his associates, is a spinoff of Project Traveller.

The final four warrants on the list disclosed Tuesday are for production orders for Bell, Rogers, Telus and Wind.

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