Alexander “Sandro” Lisi’s attempt last March to swap drugs for a stolen cellular phone believed to belong to Mayor Rob Ford helped kick-start a top secret police investigation, a Star investigation reveals.

The probe, which a police document states is called Project Brazen 2, is a spinoff of Project Traveller , the guns and gangs investigation that culminated in massive arrests on June 13. Brazen 2 is an investigation of “drug trafficking,” a police document states. Two arrests were made in this investigation last week: Lisi and the owner of an Etobicoke dry-cleaning shop .

The police document, which is part of the case against Lisi, describes Lisi’s attempt to retrieve a cellular phone belonging to “an associate” of his.

The document does not name Ford but one source told the Star the phone belonged to Ford, while two other sources said Ford’s phone was taken around this time and attempt were made to retrieve it. Neither Ford nor Lisi responded to requests for an interview.

As part of the Star’s ongoing investigation, reporters learned several months ago the story of Ford’s missing cellular phone — an incident that panicked the mayor and some of his staff. The phone was taken from the mayor in the latter part of March and was apparently retrieved. The Star does not know what was on the phone that would cause concern or if it was used to make any telephone calls while it was in someone else’s possession.

There is no suggestion this phone was used to film the video that shows the mayor smoking what appears to be crack cocaine.

According to the Toronto Police document, Lisi set about trying to retrieve a stolen phone in March.

Ford and Lisi (who has a criminal record for assaulting and threatening women) are friends and Lisi has told people that he has provided drugs to the mayor, which the Star has not been able to verify. Lisi has been an occasional driver for Ford and is known as someone who has tried to help the mayor.

Earlier the Star reported that four days after the Star and Gawker published news of the crack cocaine video, Lisi made aggressive attempts to retrieve the video, visiting the home where the infamous photo of Ford was taken (Ford is pictured with a man who was later murdered and two men who were later arrested in Project Traveller).

The video, which the Star viewed three times, shows an impaired Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks. Ford has said he cannot comment on a video he has “not seen or does not exist.”

In late March of this year, investigators learned that Lisi was “brokering the return of a cellular phone stolen from an associate of his,” the police document states. To get the phone back, Lisi was offering a “payment of marijuana” to a person in possession of the phone. The document does not say if the phone was retrieved. Sources have told the Star that Ford did get his phone back.

The police document also sheds light on how the investigation of Mayor Ford, Lisi and others began, with its roots stretching back to the stolen cellular phone from last March. That phone was stolen roughly one to two weeks before the Star learned of the crack cocaine video and nearly two months before the Star and Gawker published stories detailing the existence of the video.

According to the police document, when the 56 Project Traveller arrests were made June 13, police created a spinoff investigation dubbed “Project Brazen 2.”

The spinoff probe was created to delve into a number of people who “were suspected to be engaged in drug trafficking; however were not the subjects of the Project Traveller mandate,” according to the document. The document does not name those people.

“To preserve the integrity of Project Traveller, Project Brazen 2 was developed,” the police document states.

On June 14, as part of the new investigation, police began to investigate Lisi and “obtain lifestyle information” on the man.

The Star reported in August that Lisi, a friend of Ford (Ford has called him a “good guy”), made an aggressive attempt to retrieve the crack cocaine video four days after the Star published news of the video’s existence.

Lisi and a dry-cleaner, Jamshid Bahrami, were arrested last week on charges of trafficking marijuana as part of Project Brazen 2. Lisi is also charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence (drug trafficking).

This is the latest step in a growing story involving Toronto’s mayor. As first reported in the Star last week, investigative techniques in this case included the use of a Cessna airplane under contract to the Toronto Police. The plane was used to follow people connected to the case, an unusual step as police typically would use a tracking device attached to a car.

The police document states that Project Brazen 2 is under the direction of homicide Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux, a seasoned investigator. Toronto police say Giroux is involved because of his expertise in difficult cases and that Brazen 2 is not connected to a homicide.

The name Brazen 2 became a source of confusion last week at internal police meetings because, around the time Lisi and the dry-cleaner were arrested, police were preparing a statement on the culmination of Project Brazen — an apparently unrelated case that deals with gang activity in Scarborough. With two parts of the police department using the same code name for a project, a decision was made to call the Lisi and Ford probe “Brazen 2.”

Brazen 1, according to a Toronto Police news release, was a project launched in April, 2012. It targeted Scarborough’s Galloway Boys and Orton Park gangs and culminated with the arrest of 41 people charged with 400 charges, including attempted murder.

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