Three Montreal men identified during an Edmonton police investigation have been charged with running a cross-Canada sex trafficking ring that investigators say has been active for more than a decade.
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The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) on Thursday announced charges against the trio, who were under investigation for more than a year.
“These (suspects) are very violent,” ALERT Staff Sgt. Chris Hayes said in a video statement. “They’re willing to do almost anything to the victims to keep control of them, and preyed on their vulnerabilities and weaknesses.”
The investigation, dubbed Project Endgame, was led by ALERT’s human trafficking unit and began in May 2023 after a 911 call “detailing a sex worker being violently assaulted,” ALERT said in a news release.
Investigators say they identified “a number” of sex trafficking victims, though indicated there may be more and urged them to come forward. The group was active in Edmonton, Calgary, Lloydminster, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Fort McMurray, Cold Lake, Vancouver, and Estevan, Sask., police said.
The traffickers allegedly coerced the victims into performing “multiple sex acts on multiple clients every day,” ALERT said, adding those who pushed back were “often violently assaulted, degraded, and/or threatened (with) further loss, violence, and isolation.”
The alleged victims are now receiving help from ALERT specialists, the agency said.
Twenty-three charges have been laid against Clyde Elien-Abbot, Jean Rodnil Dubois and Kevin Dorcelus-Cetoute, all 31. Dubois and Dorcelus-Cetoute were arrested last July and released on bail, while Elien-Abbot was taken into custody Jan. 31 in Edmonton and is awaiting a bail hearing.
Dubois and Dorcelus-Cetoute are each charged with sexual assault, assault, human trafficking, procuring and obtaining material benefit from sexual services, and uttering threats.
Elien-Abbot, meanwhile, is charged with human trafficking, money laundering, animal cruelty, and advertising, procuring and obtaining material benefit from sexual services. The animal cruelty charge stems from allegations Elien-Abbot beat a dog belonging to one of the alleged victims in a bid to exert control over her, ALERT spokesperson Mike Tucker said.
Project Endgame grew out of a previous human trafficking investigation involving Dorcelus-Cetoute. In 2021, ALERT charged him with a variety of offences, including human trafficking, sexual assault with a firearm, gang sexual assault, procuring, forcible confinement, and drug possession.
Those charges were ultimately dropped. The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service said prosecutors assessed the case and entered a stay of proceedings in June 2022 “due to the unavailability of key witnesses.”
Also involved in the Project Endgame investigation were Edmonton city police, City of Edmonton animal bylaw, Service de Police de a Ville de Montreal, and RCMP in Alberta, Quebec, and Manitoba.
ALERT is a multi-agency team of Alberta police services funded by the Alberta government, aimed at investigating serious and organized crime.
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