Project South
In February 2026, York Regional Police announced charges against eight Toronto Police Service members — seven active and one retired — in a sweeping organized-crime and corruption investigation that began in June 2025 with a conspiracy to murder a corrections officer at an Ontario detention centre. The total number of accused across the investigation is approximately twenty-seven. The charges include bribery, obstruction of justice, drug trafficking, theft of personal property, breach of trust, conspiracy to commit murder, and the unauthorized access and distribution of confidential information — with police alleging that some officers leaked private personal information that was used in subsequent shootings.
Investigation timeline
- 2025-06York Regional Police investigation opens after the discovery of a conspiracy to murder a corrections officer at an Ontario Correctional Institute. The probe expands as inter-force intelligence reveals broader links to organized-crime activity in the Greater Toronto Area, including violence connected to the tow-truck industry.
- 2025-Q3 / Q4Investigation runs at scale — reporting from CP24 indicates more than 400 officers participated across multiple agencies in evidence-gathering and surveillance.
- 2026-02-05York Regional Police announce charges against 8 Toronto Police Service members (7 active, 1 retired) plus additional civilian and corrections-staff suspects, bringing total accused across the investigation to approximately 27. Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw and TPS Board Chair Shelley Carroll hold a media availability the same day.
- 2026-02-09Chief Demkiw and Chair Carroll co-sign a request to the Ontario Inspector General of Policing for an independent review of the matter. Mayor Olivia Chow: TPS leadership will have to “earn back” public trust.
- 2026-02Six of the charged active officers are suspended without pay. The remaining active officer's status is filed in TPS public-records updates as proceedings advance.
- 2026-02Ontario Inspector General of Policing announces a provincewide review of how police forces and police boards can protect against corruption.
- 2026-04-29One charged officer is denied bail a second time after a court review. (See toronto.html — TPS Corruption Probe.) Source: CP24 (Apr 29, 2026); TorontoToday.
- 2026-05-01Vigil-flagged signal from Global News at score 6.0 (keywords: corruption, bribery) confirms the probe remains active in court.
Named TPS officers charged
Six of the eight TPS officers charged have been publicly named in court documents and primary press releases. The two unnamed are filed here as “not yet publicly named” pending court-record advance.
Constable Timothy Barnhardt
Named in York Regional Police announcement of February 5, 2026. Charges as part of the broader organized-crime / corruption indictment.
Sergeant Robert Black
Named in York Regional Police announcement. Sergeant-rank charge means a supervisory officer is among the accused.
Constable John Madeley Jr.
Named in York Regional Police announcement.
Sergeant Carl Grellette
Named in York Regional Police announcement. Second supervisory-rank officer among the accused.
Constable Saurabjit Bedi
Named in York Regional Police announcement.
Constable Elias Mouawad
Named in York Regional Police announcement.
Two officers — not yet publicly named
York Regional Police's February 5, 2026 announcement cited 7 active and 1 retired Toronto Police Service member as accused. The six named above are publicly attached to charges in primary coverage; one additional active officer and one retired officer have not been publicly attached to specific charges in indexable mainstream coverage at the time of this page's publication. The dossier will name them when court records do.
Charges
| Charge category | Specifics from the public record |
|---|---|
| Conspiracy to commit murder | The June 2025 origin event: alleged conspiracy by at least one Toronto Police Service officer (and other accused) to murder a corrections officer at an Ontario Correctional Institute. This is the single most serious charge in the indictment. |
| Bribery | Officers alleged to have accepted bribes in exchange for police actions or non-actions; specifics filed by Crown at trial. |
| Obstruction of justice | Officers alleged to have interfered with the proper administration of investigative and judicial processes. |
| Drug trafficking | Trafficking-grade drug offences alleged against officers. |
| Theft of personal property | Property-theft allegations — specifics filed by Crown. |
| Breach of trust by a public officer | Misuse of position — the catch-all charge that captures policing-specific breaches not subsumed under the more specific charges above. |
| Unauthorized access & distribution of confidential information | The most operationally damning allegation in the public statement: police alleged that some officers collected personal and private information unlawfully and distributed it to members of organized crime, which resulted in serious harm in communities — including, per CP24, violence connected to the tow-truck industry and the conspiracy-to-murder file. |
All entries above are pending trial. Convictions, acquittals, and stays will be filed as the court record resolves.
The institutional & oversight response
- DemkiwToronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw (filed at police-chiefs-canadian.html) held media availability with Carroll on February 5, 2026; subsequently announced the suspension without pay of six charged active officers and proposed two additional accountability projects. TPS press release.
- CarrollShelley Carroll, Chair of the Toronto Police Service Board (since 2025) and City of Toronto Budget Chief (since 2023), publicly called the allegations “serious public concerns related to police integrity and public safety”; co-signed the Demkiw / Carroll request to the Ontario Inspector General of Policing for an independent review.
- ChowMayor Olivia Chow stated the Chief will have to “earn back” public trust. CBC (Feb 5, 2026).
- Ontario IGOntario Inspector General of Policing (the provincial oversight officer for police forces and boards) announced a provincewide review of how forces and boards can protect against corruption. CBC (Feb 2026).
Editorial — what makes Project South distinctive
This section is editorial framing, not from a charging document. Factual claims sit in the sections above; this section observes the structural features that distinguish Project South from prior TPS-officer prosecutions.
Three structural features of Project South are not standard:
- External investigator. The probe was led by York Regional Police, not by TPS Professional Standards. That sidesteps the institutional-self-investigation pattern that the Epstein Review (see missing-and-missed-review.html) and earlier accountability records had documented as a recurring failure mode.
- Conspiracy-to-murder origin. The investigation did not start from a public-trust complaint or an audit. It started from a discovered conspiracy to kill a corrections officer. That origin event explains why the charges escalate to first-degree-murder-adjacent territory rather than the bribery-and-graft territory more typical of police-corruption probes.
- Information-laundering allegation. The unauthorized-access-and-distribution charge alleges that police-held personal information was being weaponized through organized crime — the police data system itself functioning as a service to organized-crime targeting. That is a functional escalation beyond “corrupt cop accepts bribes.”
Whether Project South results in convictions on all charges is a question for the courts. Whether it changes TPS's institutional posture toward the kinds of failures the Epstein Review documented in 2021 is a question for the Ontario Inspector General's provincewide review and TPS's own implementation tracker. The dossier records both as they advance.