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On the back of this meeting, Joe, Tello and Fleming decided to start with a relatively small shipment into Newfoundland, and build their way up. On Jan. 20, 2015, Joe and another RCMP officer, UCO Bob, flew to the Bahamas. There they met Fleming, who introduced them to “Ray,” a representative for a cocaine supplier. A deal — 3,000 kilos sourced in Guyana for an Antigua pickup on March 1 — was struck.

Photo by Lorraine Hjalte/Calgary Herald

Clipped

Back in Canada, on Feb. 11, Joe next met Tello at the Intercontinental Hotel’s Signatures restaurant, in Toronto’s upscale Yorkville neighbourhood. It would turn into a long night of carousing, but Tello was sullen. Fleming had told Joe that he and Tello were throwing $2 million each at the “joint venture,” but now Tello said his financial backer had been “wacked.” He meant Cuong “Andy” Hoang, a drug trafficker shot dead in Calgary on Jan 29, 2015. “He got clipped, so that put a huge dent in things,” Tello later said.

As gangsters shuffled in and out, Joe was introduced to figures linked to Middle Eastern organized crime, the Wolfpack criminal alliance and other groups. From the Proof Bar at the Intercontinental, the group moved to the Brass Rail strip club on Yonge Street, and then back to the Hazelton Hotel. When he finally got to bed that night, Joe did so with a significantly expanded contact list.

The web of connections was growing, but by Feb. 15, the RCMP agent still hadn’t received a promised $250,000 deposit for his services, and he kicked up a fuss. To keep him sweet, Tello arranged to get Joe two kilos of cocaine — total value $102,000. The bricks were handed to UCO Steve by Fleming himself, in the same hotel parking lot as the earlier handover. Unaware of his blunder, Fleming went back “down south” to firm up the March 1 deal with the Guyana gang.

The agreement for the pickup was for the two groups to contact each other by satellite phone or VHF radio. The Guyana crew would send a fishing trawler towards Antigua; Joe would send his research boat. If the “fishing” was “good,” they would meet at their preferred co-ordinates. But after this run-through, the Guyanese let it be known they were suspicious of Joe, and were wary of committing more than 1,000 kilos unless Fleming and Tello delivered more cash up front. By March 4 trust had wilted, Tello and Fleming had no more money to offer, and everything was off.

Someone needed “to get dealt with,” a seething Tello messaged Joe.

Photo by Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg

Enter El Chapo

At Tello’s 2017 Toronto trial, an expert testified that in 2015 a kilo of cocaine went for $2,200 in Colombia. In Canada, that kilo fetched $45,000 to $65,000. In theory, 1,000 kilos could generate at least $42.8 million, before expenses.

Tello, court documents suggest, had contacts who dealt in such figures, and on March 6, 2015, he came up with a Plan B to make up for the Guyana flop. What about their mutual contact Philipos Kollaros, he asked Joe. Could he load Joe’s boat with a few hundred kilos in Antigua, as a last resort?