One of the men who tried to sell the Rob Ford crack video was arrested as part of the Project Traveller raids in north Etobicoke.

Now, Mohamed Siad, 27, an alleged drug and gun dealer, sits in segregation after being stabbed in jail just days following the massive police operation.

Siad faces a slew of charges, including participating in a criminal organization, conspiracy and the trafficking of guns and cocaine.

An ongoing Star investigation reveals that Siad was the man who sat in the back seat of a car on May 3 and showed two Star reporters a cellphone video of the mayor appearing to smoke crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks.

When police arrested Siad early in the morning of June 13 his home was searched, but the Star does not know if police recovered the video.





Neither the police nor the Crown attorney on the Project Traveller investigation would discuss the Siad case. Siad’s lawyer also said he could not talk about it due to solicitor-client privilege.

Siad’s alleged involvement in criminal activity raises the question of how he came to be involved with the Ford crack video.

The Star’s first encounter with Siad was at about 9:30 p.m. on Friday, May 3. A man who had been trying to broker the sale of the video on Siad’s behalf had driven the Star reporters to a parking lot at the Dixon Rd. complex that later would be the scene of the raids. The Star has promised to protect the identity of the broker out of concern for his safety.

The broker, who never identified Siad to the Star, had told reporters that the man with the video might sell it for a “six-figure price” that would allow him to relocate out west in Alberta. The Star reporters (Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan) were told by the broker that the man they were meeting had sold crack to the mayor and videotaped him doing drugs. However, it is unclear if Siad recorded the video, or simply had possession of the cellphone.

That night, in the busy parking lot that serves the condominium towers, the Star reporters were introduced to a man we now know was Mohamed Siad.

Siad, his arms scabbed, hustled into the back seat of the broker’s car and played the video three times for the two reporters. Siad was not technically allowed to be in the parking lot because, in 2009, he had been banned from the complex after a previous unknown incident. When he first got into the car, Siad did not want to play the audio. “Sound is extra,” he said. But Siad relented and the reporters were able to both see and hear the video. The reporters were allowed to freeze-frame the video at certain points while watching.

“I’m f---ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point, in answer to goading questions from a male voice off-camera. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great . . . ” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard referring to Justin Trudeau as a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team he coached at the time and he appears to say (though mumbling), “They are just f---ing minorities.” The video ends when a groggy, incoherent Ford reacts to a ringing cellphone and appears to notice a cellphone camera is pointed at him. “That better not be on,” Ford says, and the screen goes dark.

Siad only allowed the reporters to see the video three times, and before he left reminded the Star of what he wanted. “Money is protection,” Siad said.

Then Siad was gone, out of the car, and the Star began a process of investigating people involved in the video. The Star did not pay for or obtain the video.

Siad has no criminal record but had charges pending at the time the Star met him in the car.

Ten days before the Star reporters met Siad he was picked up by Peel Region police in Mississauga, around Dixie Rd. and Dundas St. Police initially approached him while he was in a car on Wednesday, April 24, according to Peel Police spokesman George Tudos. Siad allegedly fled on foot, pushing an officer in the process.

Siad was arrested and charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of assaulting a peace officer. One possession charge has been dropped. There is currently a bench warrant out for his arrest in Peel Region because he missed a scheduled court date there while in custody.

Previous to that, in 2009, he was arrested for gun possession stemming from an incident where a 9 mm handgun was found in a van. Five other people were inside the van at the time. Siad’s charge was withdrawn in March of 2010, according to court documents.

After the Star and Gawker published stories about the existence of the Ford video, a media storm erupted. Mayor Ford denied the existence of the video and called the reporters “pathological liars.”

Ford, who did not respond to a request to his office for comment, has previously called news of the video “false” and said: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.”

A Star story revealed that the day the story was published, Ford blurted out two 320 Dixon Rd. apartment unit numbers as a location where the video could be found. His logistics man and former football coach, Dave Price, passed this information on to the mayor’s then chief-of-staff Mark Towhey, who alerted Toronto Police because of a concern that someone would be hurt or killed over the video.

Toronto police detectives began an investigation but have refused to discuss it. Chief Bill Blair has been repeatedly asked by the media if Ford is under investigation. He refuses to answer that question.

The Star has not met with Siad since that one meeting in the parking lot. However, reporters Doolittle and Donovan were in court when Siad recently appeared by video link-up from jail. In his brief appearance he complained about being kept in segregation.

Siad is an alleged member of the Dixon City Bloods street gang. He was married recently.

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A few days after his June 13 arrest, Siad, who goes by the street name “Soya,” was stabbed multiple times in the Don Jail.

Ministry of Corrections spokesman Brent Ross confirmed an incident took place at the jail on June 15 and that an inmate was injured, but refused to release the victim’s name, citing an ongoing police investigation.

The Star does not know why or by whom Siad was stabbed. Toronto police confirmed Thursday that no one has been charged in the incident.

In asking questions about Siad, the Star has been met with a wall of silence.

“Project Traveller cases are before the courts and it would be entirely inappropriate for us to comment,” said Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash, when asked earlier this week if police had obtained a copy of the video.

A Crown attorney on the Project Traveller case, Paul Renwick, would not answer questions.

Daniel Brown, Siad’s lawyer, said in an email that ethical and professional obligations prevent him from speaking about anything he may have learned during his time as counsel. “Likewise, my conversations with prosecutors about any of my clients would be protected by the same solicitor-client privilege.”

“Unlike myself, the Toronto Police are not bound by privilege and would be in the best position to answer questions about what evidence is in their possession,” Brown said.

Brown also noted that while he is still the counsel of record for Siad, he is planning to make an application to remove himself from the case, for unspecified reasons.

Of the 56 people arrested in Project Traveller, Siad’s charges are among the most serious.

He is charged with trafficking in firearms, unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a firearm obtained by the commission of an offence, four counts of trafficking in cocaine, fourteen counts of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and three counts of participating in a criminal organization.

While the video was news to the people of Toronto it would not have been news to some of the police working on the Project Traveller case leading up to the June 13 arrests.

Surveillance during the year-long probe had picked up word of the video and the attempts to sell it to the media.

After the crack video story became big news, Siad got cold feet and decided not to sell it. The broker told the Star that the man with the video had gotten rid of the video.

It is unclear why Siad changed his mind and did not sell the video. Sources have told the Star that many people in and around the Dixon Rd. neighbourhood that became the ground zero of the Ford crack scandal were angered by the media firestorm and intense scrutiny that followed the initial stories. As well, that no one wanted to take the $200,000 raised by Gawker because it was too public and there was a belief the money could be traced.

Siad, who has not yet made an application for bail, is due back in court Aug 7.

With files from Jesse McLean