Okay. I've had a chance to re-read this article this morning and the speculation / nonsense in the article is epic. A short thread: https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1274142670106103808

1) The most interesting thing here is the withdrawal of $475,000 in cash less than one month before the shooting. His business wasn't cash-intensive, so why did he withdraw the money? In other cases I've worked, this can be part of the preparation phase before an event / incident

2) Was he working for the RCMP? The article implies strongly that that was the case, but this assertion is based almost exclusively on one financial transaction and a loose connection to the Hell's Angels.

3) So where did he get the money? Well, he had two businesses that we know of. It seems entirely plausible that this was his own personal savings / money in his business. Less plausible? That he was paid ONE LUMP SUM payment of this amount for "services rendered" to the RCMP.

4) In cash. Sure, cash is used to pay informants. But if you pay someone this much in cash, they basically have to launder it back into the financial system. There are other ways, and this would be EXCEPTIONALLY unusual. Also: literally no other indications that he was a source.

5) People are making a big deal of the INTRIA / Brinks thing. When you're a corporate banking customer, you have access to many more services than retail banking offers. This is totally normal, and banks will work to provide these services to their corporate customers.

6) Is this suspicious? See 1). From a banking perspective, as long as he gave a decent reason, the money was likely already in his accounts, so they have no grounds to refuse him access to it.

7) On the FINTRAC thing. Whoa boy where to start. FINTRAC is not privy to RCMP source / agent details. There may be rare cases where FINTRAC needs to know / finds out, but these would be EXCEPTIONAL. I can't overstate how closely guarded identities of sources / agents are.

8) In terms of an STR being cleared by FINTRAC because it's a source? Nope. More likely? STR gets analyzed by FINTRAC (yes - manually - by an analyst), and then disclosed back to the RCMP. So the RCMP gets a disclosure on their asset. No big deal - they control the information.

9) What we don't know: source of money. Could be criminal, but could also be from his businesses. A social link to the Hell's Angels is not sufficient to assume criminal, and I'd be hard pressed to argue for grounds to suspect based on that, given other plausible explanations.

10) Why he withdrew so much in cash. But see 1. My best guess is, based on timing, that it was part of his pre-meditated plan for the attack that occurred. He could use the cash for day to day needs for an extended time on the run.

11) And finally, to conclude FINTRAC thing: yes, they almost certainly would have received an STR on this transaction. Whether that occurred before or after the attack would be interesting to know. Lots of possible reasons to report before, and once his name was publi

12) would CERTAINLY have generated an STR. Why? Because it's common practice for banks to submit STRs when a suspect's name becomes public. Just standard operating procedures.

13) So the big takeaway here is that this article is full of assertions, faulty logic, leaps of logic, and experts who decline to be named / sources with no descriptors or direct access to the investigation. Basically: I call bullshit.

14) Addendum: @Macleans should retract / correct this article as soon as possible. It's basically peddling a conspiracy theory. And I think there's plenty of other issues in this case that need serious examination. We don't need to be distracted by this .

15) Post-script. Here's a follow up report that you must read. Basically: Macleans was dead wrong, and the RCMP confirmed it, even though they HATE to comment on ongoing investigations. https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1274717055414042627?s=20