Toronto Police Link Shooter-For-Hire Network to 27 Synagogue, School and U.S. Consulate Shootings

Toronto police described a pattern tied to recent shootings at synagogues, Jewish schools and the U.S. consulate, saying a network of criminals-for-hire has been linked to 27 firearm discharges across the city.

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The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail’s account says police allege the network recruited young people online, paid them to fire on the exterior of a chosen building, and required a video of the act before any money was released.

The Globe and Mail

The same report says the investigation has already cost a life, with Constable Marc Pinizzotto killed during a raid connected to the consulate shooting.

In the Grayzone’s framing, Canadian police said consulate and synagogue shootings are linked to a shooter-for-hire network, with June 16 police saying at least 27 shootings in the Greater Toronto Area appeared to be the work of such a network.

Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said, “What we know is that bad actors are using criminal elements in our city to carry out these dangerous incidents,” and he added that “it is clear that some of the people hiring these criminals want to create a sense of fear in our communities, including in the Jewish community.”

The Grayzone also quotes Secretary of State for Combating Crime Ruby Sahota saying on June 17 that “the shooters were paid and hired by a foreign entity.”

The Grayzone

The Globe and Mail’s account ties the case to foreign interference through terrorist financing, citing that the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime told the House of Commons that the gunmen were allegedly paid-for hires engaged by a “foreign entity.”

It further says U.S. prosecutors allege that an Iraqi commander of Kataib Hezbollah, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, is responsible for a range of these attacks across North America and Europe, including two in Canada.

The Globe and Mail says three people have been charged in the Toronto investigation, and it describes the case as an example of foreign interference carried out through terrorist financing, a hostile state reaching into Canada by paying for violence on its streets.

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Toronto Sun

It also states that Terrorist financing, participation and facilitation provisions in the Criminal Code already reach those who knowingly pay for terrorist attacks, while the Special Economic Measures Act and the Sergei Magnitsky Law enable Canada to freeze the assets of, and bar entry to, foreign officials responsible for significant corruption, and terrorism financing can and should be construed as such.

In the Grayzone’s account, police said the gunmen film themselves committing the crimes as proof for their paymasters, and it says the June 16 description involved payments of $1,000 in cryptocurrency.

The Globe and Mail argues that prevention efforts must bite at the “money” element, and it frames the needed response as confronting the foreign entities paying for violence and prosecuting the financiers if they are present in Canada.