After crack video found, police searched more Project Traveller cell phones, computer

TORONTO – A month after Alexander “Sandro” Lisi was arrested on extortion charges, accused of using threats to obtain a video of Mayor Rob Ford smoking what might be crack cocaine, it appears a police investigation into Lisi continued as police requested search warrants for seven more cell phones and one computer seized during the Project Traveller arrests in June.

A list of judicial authorizations obtained by Global News Tuesday reveals that police were granted access to seven cell phones and a computer seized during June’s raids on Nov. 29. And on January 14, police were granted production orders for four different cell phones. It’s believed these warrants were related to Project Brazen 2, a months-long investigation into Ford and Lisi.

Lawyers representing Global News and several other media outlets applied to an Ontario court last week to unseal the information filed to obtain the search warrants.

In Depth: Mayor Rob Ford

While it’s not clear what is on the computer or cell phones or what police wanted from them, a computer seized during the same raids contained the infamous video showing the mayor smoking what might be crack cocaine, Chief Bill Blair revealed in October.

Another set of ITOs related to the Project Brazen investigation revealed police had been tracking Lisi for months prior to Lisi’s arrest. Those documents also detailed several meetings between Lisi and the mayor, as well as interviews with the mayor’s former staffers during which they suggested the mayor drank alcohol while at city hall and dispatched taxpayer-funded staffers to buy him alcohol.

None of the allegations in those documents have been proven in court.

Police arrested 28 people, seized over $500,000 in cash and approximately $3 million in drugs during the Project Traveller raids in June, which focused on the “Dixon Bloods” or “Dixon Goonies” street gang on Dixon Road.

Many of the arrests took place at 320 Dixon Road, an apartment complex between Islington Avenue and Kipling Avenue where Toronto Star reporters and Gawker editor John Cook reportedly say they watched the alleged crack video.