Feeling that he was being disrespected by the crime bosses he served as he never received a promotion, in 1983 Elkind went to work as an
informer for the
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). As Elkind and Rayne went to New York to meet the source behind the VCR tapes, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took charge of the New York end of the
sting operation. On 11 April 1983, in New York, Anna played to Elkind and Rayne a series of VCR tapes that featured depraved scenes of children in rape and torture. Both Rayne and Elkind described watching the children pornography VHS tapes as deeply nauseating, made worse by the fact that they had to pretend to enjoy watching the tapes. Anna revealed to Rayne and Elkind that the source behind the VCR tapes was Marty Hodas, a pornography tycoon based in New York. In June 1983, Elkind and Rayne finally met Hodas, who offered to sell the depraved VCR tapes of child pornography for $2 million. Hodas promised to make Rayne "the king of pornography in Canada". Rayne paid Hodas $50,000 for the first shipment of the VCR tapes to Toronto while being recorded by FBI cameras and
bugs. Hodas flew to Toronto to meet Rayne at the
CN Tower to discuss more details of the deal. The five-month FBI–RCMP joint investigation, known as Operation Blizzard, concluded in July 1983 when a shipment of depraved content being shipped from New York to Toronto was intercepted in Buffalo and the smugglers were arrested. Eve Bloom, the woman allegedly known as "Anna", became a fugitive. In 1983 and 1984, Elkind went undercover with the Hamiltion Mafia boss Johnny Papalia to expose his mortgage scams. By October 1983, the information from Elkind had caused regulators to inquire into why Papalia had taken out an $11.7 million mortgage on properties worth only $2 million. Elkind never recorded Papalia as saying anything that could be used to indict him for a scam to defraud investors of millions as Papalia planned to sell buildings in Hamilton that he did not own, but he did collect enough evidence to put a stop to Papalia's scheme. In 1984, Elkind's status as a Teamsters official led him to be approached by Hector Massey, a political science professor at
York University and a prominent organizer for the
Liberal Party in Toronto's Jamaican-Canadian community. On 16 April 1984 at his house in
Schomberg, Massey told Elkind he could arrange for the Teamsters union truck drivers to be the sole drivers at construction sites for the federal government in exchange for a kickback. Massey went on to say that he had many friends in
Ottawa, most notably
Jean Chrétien, the Energy Minister and one of the closest allies of the Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau, and he could arrange for the federal government to do any construction project he wanted. Robinson ordered Elkind to wear a wire at his meetings with Massey, saying this was a major case of corruption. Elkind joined the Liberal Party and attended the convention on 13 June 1984 where Chrétien was defeated by
John Turner to be the next Liberal leader. During the convention, Elkind served as a bodyguard for Chrétien, whom he described as a "great guy". The investigation was stopped upon the orders of Robinson's superiors, who stated that they did not want the OPP charging federal officials with corruption on the eve of a general election. Between 1984 and 1986, Elkind stopped the schemes of a Libyan terrorist, Muftah El-Abbar, living in Toronto to commit terrorist attacks in Canada and the United States. In 1984, Robinson told Elkind that there was a Libyan intelligence agent, El-Abbar, living in a Toronto penthouse whose terrorist activities he wanted him to expose as he stated El-Abbar had brushed off several undercover agents before. On 9 August 1984, Elkind met El-Abbar by posing as a businessman who wanted a loan to sell drywall to the construction industry. Elkind served to introduce an undercover
U.S. Treasury Department agent to El-Abbar whom he stated was his American business partner. After the Treasury agent was introduced to El-Abbar, Elkind's role in the case largely ceased. The OPP file on the case read: "This individual [El-Abbar] was subsequently arrested by U.S. authorities for obtaining a U.S. passport by using counterfeit birth documents". In 2011, Elkind said of the El-Abbar case: "That’s the one thing I am most proud of". Elkind served as one of the emotional supports for Chuvalo after his heroin-addicted son Jesse committed suicide in 1985. Two of Chuvalo's other sons were also heroin addicts and both died of heroin overdoses with George Jr. being found dead in a shady Toronto hotel in 1993 and Steven Chuvalo dying of a heroin overdose on the streets in 1996. Chuvalo set himself up as an anti-drug crusader who spoke to high school students about the problems of substance abuse. Elkind had the task of persuading high school principals to allow Chuvalo to speak to students. In June and July 1986, Elkind's status as a Teamster official allowed him to be involved in a drug-smuggling ring bringing cocaine from the Detroit into Toronto, where Robinson joined him using his Colonel Gibson alter ego. Along with FBI Special Agent Rich Mazzari, Elkind and Robinson learned of a drug smuggling pipeline ran by an Indo-American financer, Kirpal Ahuwalia, that ran from
Los Angeles to Toronto with the drugs to be distributed by the Para-Dice Riders biker gang. During a drug buy in Detroit, an inexperienced FBI agent answered the phone by saying "FBI Detroit", which exposed the covers of Elkind and Robinson who were forced to flee from a bar. On 22 March 1987, two gangsters showed up at Elkind's house with the intention of killing him, leading Elkind to put his boxing skills to good use while his wife phoned the police. The case ended in June 1987 with the arrests of the owner of the Million Dollar Saloon in
Mississauga, which had been used for drug smuggling, along with the two men who had tried to kill Elkind. In 1986, Corrigan and Elkind went on a trip to New York to meet various Mafia figures while the latter kept the FBI well informed. After their return to Toronto, Corrigan told Elkind that
Carmine "The Snake" Persico, the boss of the
Colombo family, would be arriving in Toronto to hide out as he been indicted for being a member of "the Commission". Elkind informed the FBI of Persico's plans to flee to Canada, which were aborted. In 1987, Corrigan sent Elkind to
Atlantic City, where he planned to invest in real estate. During his trip to Atlantic City, Elkind reported to Special Agent Rich Mazzari of the FBI. In Atlantic City, Elkind met three Mafiosi who represented
Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, the Mafia boss of
Philadelphia, who was looking to take over a casino. Atlantic City was assigned by "the Commission" to the territory of the
Bruno family of Philadelphia. Elkind told the three Mafisoi that he not only represented Corrigan, who was willing to steal from the Teamsters pension plan to make a loan to Scarfo, but also Irving Kott, a disreputable Montreal financer. Elkind introduced Mazzari as a fellow gangster from Toronto who wanted to join the casino scheme. Mazzari put a stop to the plans of Scarfo moving into the casino business. Afterwards, Elkind learned that
John Gotti, the boss of the
Gambino family, wanted to see him, but Corrigan forbade a meeting under the grounds that Gotti was too infamous and the FBI would learn about their plans to take over a casino. Elkind exposed another of Corrigan's scams, namely the so-called International Bank of St. Kitts, based in
Basseterre. With the help of the corrupt government of St. Kitts, a group of equally corrupt Canadian and American financers and lawyers set up a pseudo-bank in St. Kitts that was owned by Corrigan. In fact, the International Bank of St. Kitts was a
boiler room operation that sold stocks in the non-existent International Bank of St. Kitts to investors in Great Britain. The major figures in the International Bank besides Corrigan were Marty Resnick; Irving Kott; Lyon Wexler; Leonard Rosenberg; and Howard Eaton. Resnick was a veteran boiler room operator had been convicted seven times of theft; six times for fraud; and once for attempting to bribe a policeman. Rosenberg was a Toronto financer who had been convicted of fraud in a real estate flip in 1983 where he had stolen $131 million from investors who served as one of the bank's key officers. Kott was the former stock broker to Vic Cotroni. Kott had been convicted of fraud in 1976, for which he paid a $500,000 fine and again in 1979, for which he served four years in prison. After his release from prison in 1983, Kott went on to make $400 million U.S. dollars via a boiler room operation in Amsterdam, selling shares in a bogus company which claimed to have invented a machine that could suck gold particles out of water. One of the bank's officers, Howard Eaton, was a disgraced financer from California who been involved in the largest bank failure in Canadian history, the
Canadian Commercial Bank, which was shut down by regulators for its involvement in Rosenberg's real estate scam. Another of the bank's officers was Lyon Wexler. Wexler was a disbarred Hamilton lawyer who had been fined $4,000 for stealing from his clients and had been involved in Rosenberg's real estate scam. Shares in the International Bank were sold via a cell centre in
London that used high-pressure sales tactics against ordinary people who would not have noticed the many dubious aspects of the International Bank, such as the lack of any known assets and that the shareholders were described as figures in impressive-sounding institutions whose full addresses were not given. Several ministers in the cabinet of the
St. Christopher and Nevis government along with their friends and family members were involved in International Bank, which led for the government of St. Kitts and Nevis to be stoutly uncooperative with requests from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada for information about the bank. The complicated international nature of the scam involving figures in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and St. Kitts made it difficult to lay charges, so Robinson once he was alerted to the scam by Elkind, did the next best thing and contacted the journalist Peter Moon. Moon ran an expose of the St. Kitts boiler room operation that appeared as the front page story in
The Globe & Mail on 26 January 1987. Resnick told Moon during an alcohol-soaked interview besides a pool in a hotel in St. Kitts about the International Bank operation that was printed in the story: "We'll meet again in
Hong Kong, maybe
Macao,
Rio de Janeiro or even Australia, in the same circumstances. And you'll be doing your job and I'll be doing mine". Moon's story caused a scandal and led to the government of St. Kitts finally shutting down the International Bank. On 14 September 1987, Elkind met a Toronto businessman, Nicholas Andreko, at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern who told him he was going to finance a coup to topple Flight Lieutenant
Jerry Rawlings, the president of Ghana, and was looking to meet some arms dealers. Elkind arranged for Andreko to meet Robinson who donned his usual alter-ego of "Colonel Gibson". Another OPP officer, Constable John Celentino, was brought in to portray another arms dealer named "Gino". On 5 November 1987, at a posh hotel in Toronto, Elkind introduced Andreko to "Colonel Gibson" and "Gino", who presented themselves as shady arms dealers who were willing to sell him a stockpile of
AK-47 assault rifles plus ammunition. As the guns were going to be smuggled into Côte d'Ivoire via the United States, the FBI was brought into the case. On 9 January 1988, in a hotel in Detroit, Elkind introduced Andreko and Sam O'Dame of the Ghana Democratic Movement to Robinson and Celentino. Andreko and O'Dame talked quite openly about their plans to assassinate Rawlings as part of their plans for a coup. On 28 February 1988, Elkind met another conspirator, Dr. Edward Mahama, who represented the leader of the plot, a former finance minister in Rawlings's government who was living in exile after a failed coup attempt in 1981. In May 1988, Elkind met with the plotters, where it was revealed that Andreko was expecting control of Ghana's rich gold mines as his reward for his part in financing the coup. Andreko revealed himself to be a member of a consortium of wealthy businessmen who wanted control of the economy of Ghana as it was noted that Ghana was a leading gold producer, the world's second largest producer of cacao, and was rich in oil, timber and diamonds. As Ghana was a fellow member of
the Commonwealth, the coup plot, which was based partly in Toronto, was especially concerning to
Joe Clark, the External Affairs Minister, who was briefed by Robinson personally on the case. The government of Canada informed the government of Ghana about the plot in September 1988, which put an end to the planned coup. On 3 May 1988, in a
road rage incident, Elkind attacked a man whom had crashed his car into his. Elkind pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm, but the Justice John Gilbert stated that as a former boxer Elkind would have to do prison time. Elkind was sentenced to 90 days in prison at the Mimico institution. While at Mimico, Elkind learned from another prisoner, Joseph Pilgrim, that he sold the gun that had been used to kill Constable Douglas Tribbing of the
York Regional Police, who had been killed during a robbery of a computer store in
Markham in 1984. On the basis of the information learned from Pilgrim, Elkind told Robinson that the killer of Tribbling was a career criminal, Ronald York, whose girlfriend was Pilgrim's sister. York was convicted of first degree murder in 1993 in connection with Tribbling's death. In February 1989, Elkind served as a loan shark to a relative of a friend of his nephew, known as "Philip" due to a court order, providing him with a loan with 240% interest. In turn, Elkind got the money for the loan from the
Commisso 'ndrina. Elkind went to the Casa Commisso Banquet Hall on
Lawrence Avenue to meet Rocco Remo Commisso, one of the three Commisso brothers, who gave him an envelope with $10,000 in cash in it in exchange for a cut of the profits from the loan sharking. As "Philip" could not manage the 240% interest, he ceased paying the loan, leading to the Commisso brothers to warn Elkind that his life depended upon ensuring that "Philip" kept repaying the loan. In the meantime, concern was expressed about Elkind's mental stability by Robinson who arranged for him to see a psychiatrist. As Elkind started to speak about his life as a criminal and informer, the psychiatrist became convinced that Elkind was mentally ill and ordered him out of his office, saying he was delusional. In the summer of 1989, Elkind's daughter brought home her boyfriend whom she introduced to her parents. Elkind recognized the young man as a local thug, and told his daughter to break up with him, saying that he knew this young man very well and he was worthless as a human being. His daughter was furious about her father calling her boyfriend a criminal, but she realized he was telling the truth when she saw her boyfriend throw
Molotov cocktails at a house as part of an extortion bid. As for his other daughter, Elkind approved of her boyfriend, but grew annoyed when he refused to propose marriage as he preferred his common-law relationship. Chuvalo stepped in to assist Elkind at a boxing match by putting the young man into a headlock and saying: "We are going to the synagogue, either for a funeral or a wedding. Your choice!" Chuvalo's tactics had the desired effect and the young couple went to the synagogue to get married. To pay for the wedding, Elkind raised $20,000 by assisting a corrupt Montreal financer Kott win control of a waste disposal company in Toronto by outbidding his equally corrupt union boss Corrigan. Elkind provided the "insider's information" which allowed Kott to outbid Corrigan, and made the $20,000, which he used to pay for a lavish traditional Jewish wedding along with a reception at
Sutton Place Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in Toronto. On 26 October 1989, Elkind threatened to kill "Philip" at a Toronto restaurant, leading for him to be promptly arrested at the restaurant as "Philip" had turned Crown's evidence and was wearing a wire. As an informer, Elkind was supposed to keep Robinson briefed on all his criminal activities, and Robinson was furious with Elkind for not telling him that he was engaged in loan-sharking on behalf of the Commisso brothers. Elkind had expected Robinson to protect him and was surprised when Robinson told him: "You were involved in a crime without telling me. You didn't tell me about this deal. You never said you were meeting the Commissos". After his release on bail, Elkind went to the Casa Comisso Banquet Hall to tell the Commisso brothers that it would not be possible for him to collect on the loan. Elkind recalled: "They were very good about it, they understood. I told them I would pay it all back to them and Remo Commisso said I just needed to pay the principle, the ten grand, and to forget about the
juice, the interest. They didn't come down hard on me at all". Elkind's arrest for making death threats, extortion, and loan sharking was reported in the Toronto newspapers, which served to protect him against charges of being an informer for several years afterward. Elkind decided that the friend of his nephew who had introduced him to "Philip" should provide the $10,000 to repay the Commisso brothers, whom he found by posing as a rabbi who wanted to hold a dinner in honor of successful young Jewish men, and called his mother, who provided him with his address and phone number. Elkind then called up the young man to tell him that he was going to provide $10,000 to repay the Commisso brothers, saying: "You give me the money or I'll have the bikers there to take care of you. Don't fuck with me!" The young man provided Elkind with $10,000 the next day, which Elkind then handed over to the Commisso brothers. As for the charges, Elkind ended up pleading guilty to extortion in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. In 1990, Elkind went undercover in Detroit along with Rayne posing as gangsters wishing to buy black market arms to sell in Toronto. After visiting a disco looking for gun-runners willing to sell them handguns, the disco was bombed. The next day, Elkind and Rayne received a phone call from FBI Special Agent Rich Mazzari to tell them that their act had worked too well, and the Detroit police were convinced that the Canadian duo were the ones who bombed the disco. Mazzari, who was in charge of FBI operations in Detroit, often borrowed Elkind from the OPP for his operations. While working for the FBI in 1990, Elkind visited an Italian bakery in Detroit suspected of selling heroin by posing as a drug dealer from Toronto who wanted to buy heroin. The baker proved quite willing to sell Elkind heroin and stated that his source was three Detroit policemen along with a real estate agent across the border in
Windsor. The information provided by Elkind led to the arrests of the three corrupt policemen.
The "Peanut Butter Murder plot" Starting with the
Gulf War of 1991, Elkind worked as a security guard at his synagogue in Toronto as the Gulf War caused an upsurge of
antisemitism in Canada, and the former boxer Elkind volunteered to serve as a security guard during the Saturday prayers at the Beth David B'nai Israel Beth Am temple. Elkind did not testify for the Crown at trials as the Crown Attorneys would call upon the undercover police officers Elkind had introduced to the accused as witnesses. On 7 November 1991, in the case of
Regina vs. Stinchombe, the
Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the identity of informers could not be kept secret anymore and the Crown would have to make informers testify at trials. In 1991, Elkind was the co-owner of the Laurel Leaf Bakery in Mississauga and became involved in a plot by two of the other co-owners, Stanley Grossman and Corrigan, to defraud the fourth co-owner, Sydney Rosen, who had in turn defrauded Grossman of some of his shares in the company. On 22 November 1991, Elkind, while wearing a wire, recorded Grossman telling him to hire some thugs to beat up Rosen and to kidnap his children to force Rosen to put $500,000 into a Hong Kong bank. On 17 January 1992, Elkind introduced to Grossman Constable John Celentino as a supposed American thug from Detroit who he had hired to beat up Rosen. After Rosen was arrested, Elkind remained active in other cases. In February 1992, at a meeting with Corrigan at the Laurel Leaf Bakery, Elkind was nearly exposed as an informer when one of his thugs jokingly said Elkind could be an informer and grabbed his chest where he felt the wire that Elkind was wearing under his shirt. Elkind screamed in mock pain and ran away. The next day, Elkind put on medical back-support straps and went to explain the incident to Corrigan by saying he was wearing braces because of a back-injury and that was what was felt under his shirt. In the spring of 1992, Elkind met with
Carmen Barillaro, the underboss of the Papalia family, to discuss his plans to sell counterfeit passports. The evidence collected by Elkind led to Barillaro being charged with drug smuggling in May 1992. At the trial of Rosen in 1993, his lawyer Joseph Bloomenfeld cited the
R vs. Stinchombe decision and demanded that the Crown's anonymous informer be compelled to testify. Elkind was forced to testify at the trial, which ended with Grossman being convicted as well as his wife divorcing him after an audio tape of him boasting about receiving fellatio from a prostitute was played in court. However, the Rosen case exposed Elkind as an informer. After being exposed as an informer in 1993, Elkind ceased his undercover work. Robinson (who had been retired since 1990 at this point) warned both Barillaro and the Commisso brothers not to kill Elkind. On 5 April 1993, Robinson met Barilaro to warn him that he would run him down if Elkind was killed, and the next day gave Comismo Commisso the same warning. On 13 May 1993, Elkind's service as an informer officially came to an end. The gangster
Eddie Melo was so enraged when he learned Elkind was an informer that he tried to beat him up in front of the
St. Lawrence Market and Elkind was only saved when Mitchell Chuvalo, the son of George Chuvalo, came to his aid. Corrigan was furious when Elkind was exposed as an informer and informed him that he was going have him killed. Elkind struck back by telling Corrigan's wife about a ménage à trois involving Corrigan, his mistress and a young woman that ended with the mistress becoming jealous and attacked the young woman. Elkind hoped that Corrigan's Italian-American wife might strike back via her Mafia associations at her unfaithful husband. Corrigan was poisoned on 6 May 2001; it remains unknown even today who had killed him. Shortly before he was exposed as an informer, Elkind had introduced an American hitman-turned-FBI informer, Ernie Kanakis, to the Commisso brothers as part of a sting operation. The possibility that the Commisso brothers might strike back at Elkind led for him to go to
Los Angeles in 1993 where he was protected by the FBI as a reward for his past services to the bureau. Bored with his life in witness protection, on 7 June 1993, Elkind broke away from his FBI bodyguards to travel to
Las Vegas to watch the boxing match between
George Foreman vs. Tommy Morrison. As Elkind had a front row seat alongside his friend
Lennox Lewis, his presence at the Foreman–Morrison fight was noticed, and as a result the FBI expelled Elkind back to Canada for violating the rules of witness protection. Elkind settled in Vancouver, but returned to Toronto in 1994 in order to be close to his daughters. In 1998, a wealthy businessman, Jack Tully, who prayed at the synagogue where Elkind served as a security guard, approached him with an offer to hire him to kill his son-in-law. Tully was angry that his son-in-law, Martin Fisher, was not permitting him to see his daughter or his two grandchildren, and told Elkind that he would pay him a substantial sum of money if he could get Fisher drunk and to drive home, believing he would be killed in an accident. Elkind refused the offer under the grounds that Fisher might kill others while driving drunk. Tully then told Elkind that Fisher was severely allergic to
peanut butter, and he would pay him a thousand dollars to kill Fisher by getting him to drink alcohol laced with peanut oil or eat food laced with peanut butter. Elkind contacted the York Regional Police about the murder plot and, while wearing a wire on 2 September 1998, recorded Tully talking about the plan to kill Fisher via peanut butter and provided him with the murder weapons, namely a bottle of peanut oil and a jar of peanut butter, which led to Tully's arrest. In January 2001, Tully went on trial in Toronto, and Elkind served as the star witness for the Crown. The bizarre nature of the murder plot made the trial into a media sensation in Toronto. As the trial progressed and it became apparent that the Crown had an overwhelming case against him, Tully made a plea bargain with the Crown where he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in exchange for a lighter prison sentence. The murder plot served as the basis for the 2004 comedy film
Zeyda and the Hitman in which Elkind was played by
Danny Aiello. Elkind was a controversial figure at his synagogue, where many felt he had damaged the reputation of the Jewish community of Toronto by his criminal activities and by exposing Tully's plot to kill Fisher. Other members of the synagogue have argued that it was Tully who set the murder plot in motion, and that Elkind did more good as an informer than he did bad as a criminal. In 2009, Elkind was called out of a retirement for his last undercover mission when he was employed in
Mexico City by the FBI and the
Policía Federal to contact one of the cousins of the Pasquale family he had grown up with. In December 2009, Elkind went to Mexico where he was told by the
Federales not to wear a wire as it was far too dangerous. Elkind had to remember what was said during the meeting to discuss smuggling cocaine into the United States, but he was paid $2,000 for his services to Mexico. ==Retirement and death==