TORONTO

The noose is tightening around Mayor Rob Ford.

The latest batch of court documents may not be shatteringly new, but they confirm what we have all long surmised: Toronto Police are probing whether the embattled mayor of this city was involved in “drug trafficking” and extortion.

Are we finally nearing the end? Are charges the next, seemingly inevitable step?

In the pages released by the court Wednesday, Project Brazen 2 detectives offer their first description of the infamous video of Ford smoking what they believe is a “narcotic.” They then ask a Toronto judge for a warrant to access the mayor’s text messages and phone records as well as those of his close associates to see if they were involved in the attempted “retrieval” of the damaging cellphone footage from suspected members of the Dixon City Bloods.

His good friend and part-time driver, Alexander Lisi, is already charged with extortion in his alleged efforts to strong arm the video back from the Dixon City Bloods who recorded it.

Police seem to be zeroing in on whether Lisi was acting on the mayor’s instructions. What role, if any, did Ford play in trying to obtain the incriminating video?

Detectives are also seeking the mayor’s texts and phone records to find out if Ford was buying drugs during those frequent, mysterious meetings with Lisi. “Throughout this investigation it has been established that Alexander Lisi and Mayor Ford call and meet each other on a regular basis.

“Some of these communications and meetings have been indicative to that of drug trafficking,” the document alleges.

Lisi, of course, is already facing drug trafficking charges.

And if Lisi knows anything about the mayor, it appears he has not rolled on him. According to the documents, police say he has refused to be interviewed.

So they are seeking his phone records as well. Toronto Police have already gone to Apple headquarters to get access to the stored data from Lisi’s iPhone but now want the records from a second, flip phone as well.

As for Ford, detectives want access to his cellphone and his Onstar car phone in his Cadillac Escalade from Feb. 17, 2013 — the day police say he was filmed smoking what appears to be a “narcotic” — and May 26, 2013.

“It is unknown if anyone attempted to contact Mayor Ford in relation to the sale of the video,” the new documents state. “However a Project Traveller intercept between two individuals shows that Mayor Ford may have tried to purchase the video. The production order may show if any one of these individuals or anyone else contacted Mayor Ford within that same time frame.”

Police say they are seeking “communication data that would be relevant to our investigation as it pertains to the retrieval of Mayor Ford’s cellphone or video depicting Mayor Ford consuming what appears to be a narcotic.”

They didn’t know it at the time, but police had the notorious video in hand on June 13, 2013 during the Project Traveller guns and gangs sweep in the Dixon neighbourhood.

Police seized seven cellphones and a laptop from the home of accused gang member Mohamed Siad — the man we later learned had recorded the crack video and then tried to sell it. But forensic detectives didn’t get around to examining the evidence until Oct. 29.

It would prove to be a decisive day in the life of the mayor.

According to the newly-released documents, Det. John Menard, supervisor of the intelligence unit’s technological crime section, was looking into the seized laptop when he uncovered deleted evidence “pertinent to our investigation”: photos of a firearm and “the videos in relation to Mayor Ford”.

Of the five videos retrieved, three were failed attempts to get the cellphone to record properly. The fourth file is the now famous one-minute surreptitious recording of Ford smoking from what appears to be a crack pipe.

“At one point Mayor Ford holds the glass cylinder to his mouth. Lights the lighter and applies the flame to the tip of the glass cylinder in a circular motion,” the document states.

“After several seconds, Mayor Ford appears to inhale the vapour which is produced, then exhale vapour.”

The video ends with Ford looking into the recording device and then dropping the glass cylinder.

“He briefly points at the camera and asks if it’s on,” the document states.

Police say the video was recorded on the evening of Feb. 17, 2013 — the Sunday of Family Day weekend, no less — and present were convicted drug trafficker Elena Basso and alleged gang members Siad and Liban Siyad.

The fifth video is a 25-second clip of Siad recording himself. “That’s how you catch a person slipping or even a mayor smoking crack,” he boasts according to police.

The police examination of Siad’s computer suggests there is a sixth video clip that has yet to be restored. “Det. (John) Menard advised that there is a possibility that there is other data, including video #0313 that may shed further light into what occurred that day,” the document states.

The crack video has been for sale since February, police say, and that is why they are after Ford’s phone records and those of the other players from that date forward. Project Traveller didn’t begin tapping Siad and other alleged gang members until March.

We also learned more connections between Ford and the Basso family.

The mom and siblings live at 15 Windsor Rd., which police have called a “crack house” and the setting for the Ford video. During a police interview, Fabio Basso told investigators that his brother Enzo has actually worked for the Ford family’s printing and labelling business for about a decade.

Previous police documents alleged his sister was caught on wiretap asking a man to bring drugs over to her home for the mayor. Basso said he’s known the mayor since high school and while he drops by frequently, he’s never seen him smoke crack.

He said he’d campaigned for Ford but the mayor hasn’t used his house as a campaign office or paid its utility bills.

Basso also described the home invasion that was reportedly an attempt to secure the crack video.

On May 21, 2013 — just days after allegations first surfaced of a video showing the mayor smoking crack cocaine — Basso told police a “black guy” forced his way into his home and beat him and his girlfriend with an expandable baton. He claimed the unknown man didn’t say anything before leaving. No charges have been laid in connection with the incident.

Ford was accused in a recent lawsuit of ordering a vicious jailhouse assault against Scott MacIntyre, his sister’s ex-boyfriend to keep him quiet about the mayor’s drug and alcohol abuse. Ford’s lawyer has denied the claim and the allegations have not been proven in court.

Many of the major players in this crack video saga have refused to speak to police, including the mayor himself.

Despite Ford’s repeated claims that he wants to see the video, the new documents argue that he refused a chance to see it. Police said they offered to show the clip to the mayor under condition that he not jeopardize anyone’s fair trial rights by discussing it or commenting on it. The response from Ford’s lawyer was that he would not be coming in.

It should be noted that none of the allegations in the documents has been tested in court. Ford refused comment when pressed by the media Wednesday.

For Ford believers, the revelations in these documents will no doubt be dismissed as just more of the same — the politically-motivated, ongoing, unfair persecution of an ordinary man of the people.

But let us recap, shall we?

A self-confessed lying, crack-trying mayor with nefarious friends, caught on tape, knee-deep in an intense police probe investigating whether he is involved in drug trafficking or extortion. Do we really need to say more?

Highlights of the Project Brazen 2 court documents