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A former Surrey RCMP officer who pleaded guilty to breach of trust has been sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Dawwd Soukary, 31, had initially been charged with 13 counts related to drug trafficking, breach of trust, theft over $5,000, cannabis distribution and conspiracy to commit robbery.
In a decision rendered Thursday in New Westminster, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Murray Blok accepted a joint sentencing submission from Crown and defence.
According to the ruling, the single count of breach of trust Soukary pleaded guilty to “comprises a number of events where he accessed confidential police information and disclosed that information to criminal associates of his” between 2020 and 2021.
At the time, Soukary was only months into the job as a probationary officer, who was required to be working under the supervision of a field trainer.
Undercover sting
According to the ruling, Mounties began investigating Soukary in August 2020 after a tip supported by CCTV footage of him allegedly participating in the purchase of a “significant volume” of drugs on behalf of suspected criminals.
The tipster told police Soukary had said once he was no longer under supervision, he intended to use police databases to get information for his associates.
Police concocted a fictitious undercover investigation targeting a fictitious “big-time” drug trafficker, recruiting Soukary and pairing him with an partner who pretended to be a corrupt undercover officer, according to the ruling.
When the partner told Soukary that he was leaking confidential information to his own criminal associates, Soukary indicated he wished to do the same, the court heard.
According to the ruling, the sting saw Soukary participate in 43 undercover scenarios with his “fictitiously corrupt partner” and 16 additional scenarios involving the “sham undercover drug operation” between Oct. 28, 2020, and Jan. 27, 2021.
Exchange and arrest
The sting concluded after an exchange with the fictitious drug trafficker, from whom Soukary was placed to buy a kilogram of cocaine for $70,000.
Soukary believed the real street price was significantly lower, and told his partner that if he could work a better deal he would pocket the difference and split it with them, according to the ruling.
The RCMP gave him $72,000 to make the exchange, but Soukary negotiated a price of $63,000; Soukary kept $8,000 and gave $1,000 to his fictitiously corrupt partner, the court heard.
Police subsequently arrested him and recovered the cash from all parties.
When investigators then seized and searched his phone, they found he had repeatedly texted confidential information to two associates, including police intelligence bulletins, file materials and database information, and information cleaned from unauthorized database queries, according to the ruling.
The decision concluded that there was no evidence the information he shared compromised any active investigations or led to criminal conduct.
“While Mr. Soukary was aware of the risk of violence arising from the sharing of this information, there is no evidence that any person was impacted because of it,” Blok added.
In its submission, the Crown noted Soukary’s lack of a prior criminal record, youth at the time of offence and guilty plea, but noted that “his actions were a flagrant violation of the trust placed on him” as an officer.
Defence noted Soukary grew up in “underprivileged conditions” and argued the sting that caught him “aimed to create a climate that normalized police corruption.”
Block ultimately concluded “a sentence involving actual jail time” was necessary, and the proposed submission fit within the range of comparable cases.
Soukary, who resigned from the RCMP in 2021, has since moved to Ottawa where he co-parents a daughter with his ex-wife and works at a soccer and athletic gym, according to the decision.