Claude Savoie - Cop corruption revealed 30 years on

Before being transferred to Ottawa, Claude Savoie led the C Division’s Montreal drug-trafficking investigations.

Claude Savoie sat alone in his office at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa on a Monday morning. Savoie felt the walls closing in. Savoie was corrupt. He was taking money from one of the biggest drug traffickers in Canada, Allan 'The Weasel' Ross of the West End Gang. Savoie knew the Fifth Estate was scheduled to air the story. Sometime between 9:15 and 9:20 a.m., he used his service revolver to end his life.

Alan Ross after his 1979 arrest for drug trafficking. Ross paid Claude Savoie $200k in bribes in 1990 and 1991.

The Fifth Estate story was only half the tale. Savoie had several meetings with Ross and with Sidney Leithman, a defence lawyer who acted as middleman for Ross. Savoie revealed the identity of a RCMP informant through Leithman. Leithman was executed weeks later on May 13, 1991. Leithman’s homicide remains unsolved. Savoie's involvement was heavily censored. While Savoie was being bribed by Ross, the RCMP lost a 240kg shipment of cocaine sent by a Colombian drug cartel to the West End Gang. The cocaine vanished after a leak about investigation 'Project Carton/Valpro'.

The leak coincided with a period in April 1991 during which Savoie held three meetings with Leithman before he was killed.