An RCMP investigation into the financial records and mail use of men accused of building up an anti-government militia suggests they received and spent almost half a million dollars over a period of two and a half years, using much of it\u00a0to buy weapons and military equipment.<\/p>\n
There’s also a question of where the money came from, with the suggestion of third-party financial involvement.<\/p>\n
In July, the RCMP arrested four Quebec men, all with military ties, for allegedly planning an ideologically motivated violent plot “intending to forcibly take possession of land in the Quebec City area.”<\/p>\n
Alongside weapons charges, three of them \u2014 Marc-Aur\u00e8le Chabot, 24, Simon Angers-Audet, 24, and Rapha\u00ebl Lagac\u00e9, 25 \u2014 have been charged with the serious offence of facilitating a terrorist activity.<\/p>\n
All three have been denied bail and have opted for a jury trial.<\/p>\n
The fourth, Matthew Forbes, 33, faces charges including possession of firearms, prohibited devices and explosives and possession of controlled items.<\/p>\n
He’s been granted bail on strict conditions.<\/p>\n
Follow the money<\/p>\n
According to court documents, all four men were heavily surveilled ahead of their arrest, including their financial records and frequent sending and receiving of packages.<\/p>\n
RCMP allege that between Jan. 8, 2020 and June 23, 2023, the four men combined had total transactions of $483,741.12 \u2014 some between each other and others for various weapons and military equipment businesses in Canada.<\/p>\n
RCMP quote a report from Canada’s financial intelligence agency which looked into the accused financials.<\/p>\n
In Lagac\u00e9’s case, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada notes “the amount and volume of transactions are disproportionate compared to the apparent financial situation and employment of Lagac\u00e9.”<\/p>\n
He was a house painter at the time.<\/p>\n
The report notes “it also indicates that Lagac\u00e9 is believed to be the beneficiary of third parties by, for example, receiving funds and then transferring them to others.”<\/p>\n
The documents do not mention any investigation into who those third parties may be.<\/p>\n
The details are found in what are called information to obtain (ITO) requests, filed by the police in order to receive a judge’s authorization for search warrants.<\/p>\n
CBC\/Radio-Canada and other media outlets fought for the documents to be made public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An RCMP investigation into the financial records and mail use of men accused of building up an anti-government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-162568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}