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Project South has resulted in charges against seven serving Toronto Police officers and a retired officer, as well as 20 civilians, on an array of allegations.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Investigators suspected that an alleged attempt to murder a jail guard that sparked the sweeping Project South police corruption probe may have been ordered by a jailed accomplice of alleged cocaine kingpin Ryan Wedding with help from the inmate’s former girlfriend, according to newly released court documents.
She was working alongside the jail officer at the Toronto South Detention Centre, where the inmate was also detained.
While neither the inmate nor the female correctional officer were charged, both were central targets in the murder-conspiracy investigation, the documents say.
Announced in February as one of the biggest police corruption busts in Canadian history, Project South has resulted in charges against seven serving Toronto Police officers and a retired officer, as well as 20 civilians, on an array of allegations, including bribery, drug trafficking and the alleged botched hit. Investigators have alleged that members of organized crime were buying data and addresses from police officers, which were then used to co-ordinate targeted shootings and other crimes.
The information to obtain documents (ITOs), which investigators used to get judicial authorization to conduct searches and make arrests in the bust, were unsealed in Ontario Superior Court Friday, after a joint application by a media consortium, including The Globe and Mail.
The package includes more than 500 pages of ITOs and warrant applications issued on the eve of February’s takedown raids. Much of the material remains under a publication ban, while Justice Laura Bird considers arguments from the media consortium, the Crown and the defendants about whether the remaining material should be shielded to protect the fair trial rights of the accused.
The documents detail the trail that detectives followed to uncover a complex alleged web of police corruption and organized crime. They contain unproven allegations that have not been tested in court. ITOs don’t necessarily result in criminal charges and several of the people named in the documents released on Friday do not face charges.
After the alleged attempt on the jail officer’s life, investigators have said that they worked backward, determining that a Toronto Police Service constable, Timothy Barnhardt, had allegedly used police databases to leak information about the target of the attack to an alleged organized-crime figure, Brian Da Costa.
Toronto Police division at core of Project South probe has history of data breaches
The documents provide further details about the allegations against Constable Barnhardt, including that he repeatedly used law-enforcement databases to illegally query addresses that were later targeted by shootings.
Police have also charged the alleged attackers who they intercepted at the jail guard’s home – a 28-year-old man and two youths – with murder conspiracy. But authorities have not previously explained what they believe motivated the attack or who allegedly ordered it.
Investigators have alleged that the hit men visited the guard’s home three times over a 36-hour period last June.
According to the warrants, the guard told investigators that he knew that he was unpopular with the jail’s inmates and that the list of those wishing him harm could be lengthy. He provided names of inmates who could be behind the attempted hit.
Among them was Gurpreet Singh, who is facing extradition to the U.S. on allegations that he is tied to the Wedding organization. The 32-year-old, who is charged in California with overseeing a transport-truck network that smuggled hundreds of kilograms of cocaine for Mr. Wedding, has been in the Toronto South jail since his arrest in October, 2024.
As the investigation into the attack on the guard ramped up through 2025, the warrant applications reveal that investigators zeroed in on Mr. Singh. In addition to people on the outside that were allegedly helping him, police also identified a possible accomplice on the inside: Mr. Singh’s alleged former girlfriend, a correctional officer named Nishwant Dosanjh.
“The evidence further suggests that Gurpreet Singh while incarcerated may have directed the June 18, 2025 attack … through external facilitators … as well as internal facilitator Nishwant Dosanjh,” Detective Constable Antonio D’Onofrio wrote in his warrant applications to Ontario Court Justice Michelle Rumble in late January.
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From left, Toronto Police chief Myron Demkiw, York Region Police chief Jim MacSween and York Region Police deputy chief Ryan Hogan announce the results of the Project South investigation at a Feb. 5 press conference.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
In response to questions for this story, Mr. Singh’s lawyer Brian Greenspan told The Globe, “We’re not responding to allegations that have not led to a charge.”
The Toronto lawyer stressed that ITOs are written only to the legal standard of suspicion, which falls short of the reasonable and probable grounds needed to lay a Criminal Code charge.
Kim Schofield, a lawyer representing Ms. Dosanjh, said in a statement that her client was considered by police to be “a person of interest” in the probe and that she surrendered her cellphone to a search.
“Ms. Dosanjh denies any allegations of criminal or professional misconduct,” Ms. Schofield said. She said that her client “adamantly maintains her complete innocence” and “has co-operated fully.”
Ms. Dosanjh has been on paid leave from the Toronto South Detention Centre since February, Ms. Schofield said.
According to the ITOs, she was already on the radar of jail officials by the time of the alleged hit attempt on her colleague.
An occurrence report was filed at the jail in April, 2025, after a coworker expressed unease to a union representative about the amount of time she and Mr. Singh were spending together, according to the warrant applications. He worried that she was potentially “compromised,” according to the ITOs.
The report notes their romantic history and says Ms. Dosanjh had bragged about Mr. Singh buying her “expensive gifts, payments for cosmetic surgery and travel,” the court documents say.
The two travelled to Mexico at the same time in 2023, according to Canada Border Services Agency records that police retrieved.
Ms. Dosanjh allegedly told the coworker that she knew Mr. Singh was “shady” and had another girlfriend, he recalled, but said she liked the “bad-boy type,” the records say.
In the warrant application package, police noted that while working at Toronto South, Ms. Dosanjh was observed in dozens of private interactions with Mr. Singh.
On three occasions – Dec. 26, Jan. 2 and Jan. 23 – they were observed speaking for more than an hour, the ITO alleges.
“The relationship between Dosanjh and Singh demonstrates both the opportunity and motive to facilitate access to sensitive information and contraband,” Det. D’Onofrio wrote.
Thirty federal cases affected after Toronto police officers charged in Project South probe
Months before the 2025 alleged murder conspiracy, Toronto South had been increasing scrutiny on its inmates.
At a bail hearing in March, 2025, Mr. Singh had complained to a judge about his treatment at the jail, The Globe previously reported, including early-morning strip searches.
Police suspected the alleged plot against the jail guard could have ramped up with someone photographing the licence plate on his truck that spring, as it was parked at the jail.
In the ITO, Det. D’Onofrio wrote that there was only one likely photographer. “I believe that Correctional Officer Nishwant Dosanjh photographed the licence plate,” he wrote. He told Justice Rumble it was his belief that she had access to the parking lot and a grudge against the guard and “subsequently provided that image to Gurpreet Singh, either directly or indirectly.”
The ITO materials say police also suspected that Ms. Dosanjh then relayed the image to an intermediary. In mid-May 2025, Constable Barnhardt allegedly conducted a plate search for the jail guard’s address information, which made him “a suspect in the conspiracy to commit murder investigation,” Det. D’Onofrio said.
Mr. Barnhardt now faces 17 criminal charges, including several conspiracy charges where his co-accused is Mr. Da Costa, but neither has been charged with murder-conspiracy.
Constable Barnhardt’s lawyer, Jason Dos Santos, declined to comment on the warrant materials. “We will defend these allegations in a courtroom,” he said. Mr. Da Costa’s lawyer, Craig Bottomley, also declined to comment.
After months of investigation, the Project South detectives returned to the Toronto South Detention Centre. In January of this year, they arranged to interview Mr. Singh about the alleged murder conspiracy but he “refused to answer any questions.”
The ITO materials say this was a “stimulation” strategy – and that Mr. Singh was later seen talking to Ms. Dosanjh and police tried to eavesdrop with radio listening devices. “However, due to the poor quality of audio, the intercepted communications are largely unintelligible and are of no evidentiary value,” the released materials say.
A few weeks later, Justice Rumble signed warrants that authorized searches of 19 residences, 13 vehicles and two businesses. York Police say the investigation is continuing. The Ministry of the Solicitor-General, which runs the province’s jails, declined to comment.