Suggestions by police that Mayor Rob Ford tried to buy a video that shows him smoking crack cocaine are “potential hearsay” and an “outright lie,” Mr. Ford and his lawyer said on Thursday – even as Toronto Police launched a media blitz to defend its handling of the investigation. 
 
 Mr. Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, dismissed as “potential hearsay” the latest allegations from a police document that suggests alleged gang members may have tried to blackmail the mayor, and that police believed Mr. Ford offered $5,000 and a car in exchange for the video. 
 
 The allegations stem from wiretap conversations between some of the young men arrested in Project Traveller – a gang and drug investigation that resulted in dozens of arrests in mid-June – and their claims about supplying drugs to the mayor. “It could be exaggeration. It could be lies,” Mr. Morris said. 
 
 Mr. Ford told Washington radio station 106.7 The Fan on Thursday: “Number one, that’s an outright lie, and number two, you can talk to my lawyers about it.” 
 
 The mayor’s brother, Councillor Doug Ford – who on Thursday wore a black t-shirt with a picture of the mayor and the slogan “Built Ford Tough,” also questioned the motive behind the investigation. “I haven’t seen a video, have you? In my opinion, the police chief has his own agenda,” he said. 
 
 Several councillors also voiced concerns this week about Toronto Police’s handling of the investigation. Mr. Ford has not been charged, and none of the allegations in the document have been proven in court. 
 
 But Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash told The Globe and Mail on Thursday that Chief Blair cannot comment because the investigation is ongoing and the matter is before the courts. 
 
 “We knew that we were going to be subjected – entirely appropriately – to the greatest scrutiny, and we will make sure and continue to make sure that we dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t,’” Mr. Pugash said. “Because we know that we will have to justify not only what we do, but anything that we don’t do.” 
 
 And what police did not do – lay charges against the mayor – has been a persistent question, Mr. Pugash said. 
 
 “The Chief said yesterday, ‘Where there are reasonable and probable grounds for charges, people will be charged,’” he said. “Just because someone says, ‘Yeah, I may have driven impaired’ – you need evidence. You need them in a vehicle. You need to be able to get blood level.” 
 
 Premier Kathleen Wynne declined to answer questions about the investigation on Thursday, but said that, after meeting with Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly this week, she had “a lot of confidence in city council.” 
 
 Mr. Kelly said Toronto’s executive committee, which met on Thursday, is “immunized” from the controversies. He added that Mr. Ford cannot continue to dodge questions on the investigation. 
 
 “The most troubling aspect of this situation was his involvement with certain types of people in Toronto and he’s got to explain that,” he told reporters. 
 
 Mr. Kelly chaired the first meeting of executive committee since the seat was pulled from the mayor in a council vote last month. The mayor left the meeting early, after which the executive committee approved the city’s water and garbage budgets, which will now be presented to council. 
 
 Councillor John Filion, the architect of the measures to shift authority from Mr. Ford to the deputy mayor, said they “seem to be working.” 
 
 Mr. Kelly said concerns about the police investigation should be directed to the police services board. 
 
 In an e-mail, Alok Mukherjee, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, said the Police Services Act prohibits the board from giving direction to Chief Blair on day-to-day investigations. 
 
 Councillor Michael Thompson, vice-chair of the police services board, said he is satisfied with the investigation. 
 
 With reports from Bill Curry in Ottawa and Kaleigh Rogers ||||| At one point earlier this year, a gang member alleged in a telephone conversation intercepted by police, Ford offered $5,000 and a car in exchange for the embarrassing video, an offer that was rejected. The same gang member planned to ask for $150,000 from Ford in return for the video of him appearing to smoke crack cocaine and making homophobic and racially charged remarks. 
 
 Mayor Rob Ford ’s habit of doing drugs with gang members led to him being targeted in an apparent extortion plot related to the crack cocaine video and possibly a series of photographs of him in compromising situations, newly released police documents say. 
 
 Meanwhile, the series of wiretap recordings of gang members reveals there were more images of the mayor doing drugs and, according to one man, being in “a lot of f---ed up situations.” Crack cocaine and possibly heroin are the drugs involved, along with marijuana, according to the police documents. 
 
 Whether Ford paid and obtained the original video is not known. A copy was recently recovered by police on a laptop hardrive. 
 
 The allegations contained in the police documents released by Justice Ian Nordheimer have not been tested in court. 
 
 “Rob Ford wants some drugs,” one man said to another in a recorded conversation. We have pictures of Rob Ford “on the pipe,” said another. “The mayor of the city Rob Ford was smoking his rocks today,” a man says on yet another captured phone call. 
 
 More than any other revelation in the Ford saga, these documents reveal how deeply Ford was involved with members of the Dixon Bloods, a violent drugs and guns gang whose members were busted in a series of June raids called Project Traveller. 
 
 Gang members “love” Ford, one man said on a wiretap, but they were all well aware that photos and videos of the mayor were a valuable commodity and insurance against him calling in police to expose their activities. 
 
 In what must have been a complicated relationship, the mayor of Canada’s largest city partied with gang members. But according to a wiretapped conversation involving his friend and driver Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, Ford would bring “heat” on the Dixon community if things did not go his way. In that case, back in April, Ford’s cellphone was stolen during a drug party. Ford got his phone back. 
 
 What follows is an account of Ford’s connections to the gang, as revealed by wiretaps police used for the Project Traveller probe that ended June 13 with massive arrests and seizures of drugs and guns. 
 
 The wiretap information presented here was included in an Oct. 2 search warrant related to Ford friend Lisi, who is called “Dro” by gang members and “Rat” by some of his associates in other parts of Etobicoke. Lisi is facing drug-trafficking charges and has also been charged with extortion in connection with his attempt to retrieve the crack video. 
 
 Sometime in February, as police have said, Ford was videotaped at 15 Windsor Rd., a notorious crack house where officers on stakeout had noticed obvious drug trafficking, with people known to be involved in the drug trade coming and going. In February, there were no wiretaps on gang members’ phones. As far as the Star can tell, police had no idea that the mayor was visiting the crack house at that time. 
 
 On March 18, police involved in Project Traveller went to Nordheimer and obtained authorization to wiretap several phones. There was no wiretap on Ford or Lisi, or at least none that are referenced in the police documents. There were, as the police documents reveal, wiretaps on people who partied with Ford and provided him with drugs. 
 
 The police have been selective in which wiretaps were included in the Lisi search warrant document, choosing only what they required to obtain a search warrant for Lisi’s parents’ home and car. 
 
 According to police documents, a Star story on Ford in March caught the interest of both police and gang members. 
 
 Two months before the world learned of the crack video, the Star published a story on Ford being asked to leave the Garrison military ball in Toronto because he appeared drunk or high. Lisi drove him there that night and saw him home. 
 
 The publication of that story on March 26 was noticed by members of the Dixon Bloods, a gang whose members ply their trade in a series of condominium towers in north Etobicoke called Dixon City. 
 
 One of the Dixon gang members who would later try to sell the crack video to the Star and Gawker, Mohamed Siad, received a cellphone call early the next afternoon from fellow gang member Siyadin Abdi. 
 
 Neither knew it, of course, but police had a wiretap on the line. The police documents provide summaries in most cases, paraphrasing what officers heard and, in many cases, had to translate — a job that would take months because there were thousands of intercepted calls to be processed. 
 
 The call was at 1:16 p.m. March 26, and the timing was important. Shortly before that, Ford had raged at Toronto City Hall (in front of television cameras) about the Star story that morning describing his ejection from the Garrison Ball. Ford called the Star and its reporters “pathological liars.” 
 
 Speaking to Siad on the telephone, Abdi commented that “their friend” Ford was on TV again. According to a summary of the wiretap, the two men “talked about Ford going to a party and getting kicked out because he was intoxicated. They then discussed plans to sell the tape,” according to a summary of that wiretap. 
 
 Siad, after a discussion of selling the crack tape, asked Abdi if he recalled what Ford previously said to him. 
 
 “Yeah,” replies Abdi, “he said I’ll give you five thousand and a car. What the f--- is that?” 
 
 Siad tells his friend he plans to meet Ford “and ask for 150,” which detectives state in an analysis probably means he would ask Ford for $150,000. 
 
 The two men discuss options. Abdi recommends trying to sell the video to the Star and a “website.” 
 
 Siad responds that he wants to see Ford “personally.” Abdi says no; that would put Siad in “jeopardy.” 
 
 At the end of the discussion, “Siad said he does not want to go to the media but he would rather just see (Ford). He says he’ll ask for 100 or 150.” 
 
 That was March 26. It is unknown if Siad went to see Ford as planned. 
 
 Fast-forward to April 20, a Saturday, before 1 a.m. It’s a pivotal day that will see drugs ordered for Ford, a visit to 15 Windsor Rd., Ford losing his cellphone and Lisi threatening the thieves, then retrieving the phone by paying with marijuana, according to material in the documents. 
 
 According to the police wiretaps revealed Wednesday, at 12:52 a.m. a woman believed to be Elena Johnson placed a call to Liban Siyad, one of the Dixon Blood gang members. Elena, nicknamed “Princess,” with a record for prostitution and drug offences, lives at 15 Windsor Rd. with her brother, Fabio Basso. Fabio went to high school with Ford. Elena is also a friend of the mayor. 
 
 The woman is heard saying on the wiretap to Siyad that Rob Ford is at her residence. 
 
 More calls are made, and a gang member named Abdullahi Harun makes a call to Siyad, telling him to “go to Princess’s house because Rob Ford wants some drugs.” 
 
 Siyad is heard on a separate call saying he knows about the plan, because Princess already called him. 
 
 What happens next at 15 Windsor Rd., a known crack house, is not described. However, wiretaps over the next few hours that Saturday in April reveal a number of calls between 1 a.m. and 6 am that indicate Ford is at the house with gang members, doing drugs. 
 
 Gang member Harun is heard saying “he had Rob Ford smoking on the ‘dugga.’ He said he has so much (sic) pictures of Rob Ford doing the hezza (a slang sometimes used to describe heroin).” 
 
 Siyad is heard telling Harun, who is at 15 Windsor Rd., to “take a picture of that because of what it would be worth.” 
 
 Later, just before sun-up, Siyad is heard calling someone and saying, “the mayor of the city Rob Ford was smoking his rocks today.” Later, in an almost hour-long chat, Siyad tells someone (no name is given) that he was at Princess’s house when all of this happened and he plans to put a photo on Instagram. 
 
 There is no indication in the wiretaps and accompanying documents as to how long the party at 15 Windsor lasted. 
 
 But at 11:37 a.m. that Saturday, a very concerned Lisi, Ford’s occasional driver, is heard making calls in an attempt to retrieve Ford’s cellphone, apparently stolen during the party at the house, a bungalow just a stone’s throw from the Dixon complex. 
 
 Lisi told people he was calling that Ford was “freaking out” and wanted his phone back. 
 
 “Lisi threatened that if he did not get the phone back that the Mayor would put heat on Dixon,” according to a summary of a call from Lisi to Siyad. 
 
 Lisi, it is clear, was at the house with Ford. “Lisi called Siyad and stated he was one of the guys at Elena’s house last night. Lisi accused Siyad and his friend of stealing the Mayor’s phone.” 
 
 Calls shoot back and forth over the next hour. Siyad, speaking to a man nicknamed “Juiceman,” tries to concoct a story explaining why they have Ford’s phone. 
 
 Lisi’s threat is recalled in one conversation. “Siyad advises he didn’t like being threatened and that they have a picture of Rob Ford on a pipe,” according to the police wiretap information, which notes that detectives believe he means a “crack pipe.” 
 
 An unknown man comes on the line and states: “(we) love and respect Rob Ford but (we) have Rob Ford on a lot of f---ed up situations and (we) don’t wanna say anything.” 
 
 A plan is hatched to say one of the younger men took it by accident. 
 
 Later that day, Lisi arranged to meet Siyad at a Country Style doughnut shop in the area, promising to bring him some “spliffs” (marijuana). 
 
 They meet. Later in the day, Siyad is heard on a wiretap telling another man that he received “1.5 of kush” (slang for marijuana) from “Rob Ford’s driver.” Later Siyad tells another person, a woman, that what he received was actually “Rob Ford’s kush.” 
 
 While Lisi was arranging to retrieve Ford’s phone, Ford was at an Etobicoke Park leading a community cleanup, painting over graffiti and picking up garbage. TV cameras captured him around the noon hour. 
 
 “Having a clean city is very important,” a tired-looking Ford says in video captured by CP24. 
 
 It is not clear if Ford actually got his phone back that day. Other parts of the police documents explain how he told staffers he lost his phone at the park. A new phone was ordered, service to the old phone cancelled. By the following Wednesday, Ford told staffers he had found his old phone. The new one was returned to the store. 
 
 What, if anything, was on the phone Ford lost is not explained in the police documents. 
 
 The police wiretaps that form part of the search warrant document leave an enormous gap between April 20 (the drug party and lost phone) and the next day of note, according to the documents: May 17. 
 
 The previous evening, May 16, Gawker.com and the Star published stories about the existence of the crack video. As previously reported, a flurry of calls flew between Lisi and Ford immediately after publication. 
 
 Early the next morning, at 12:47 a.m., Siad (the man who tried to sell the video on a cellphone to the Star and Gawker) places a call to his sister and tells her that he is keeping a phone in a red pencil case. “Take it out and hold it for (me),” Siad told his sister. 
 
 The final day of interest noted in the wiretaps related to the video is May 29. 
 
 Two gang members are heard discussing a “kidnapping.” According to the wiretaps, they kidnapped Siad for an hour and talked to him about “the video.” 
 
 “Siad was crying, saying he destroyed the video and his family is in trouble,” according to the wiretapped call. One of the men discussing this said he warned Siad that if he “saw him in Dixon he would kill him.” 
 
 Two weeks later, all of the men noted on the wiretaps discussing Ford, the video, or the missing phone were arrested in Project Traveller and charged with gun and drug offences. ||||| CHRIS YOUNG FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL 
 
 On the night of April 20, Mayor Rob Ford's cellphone goes missing. He tells his staff that the device slid off the hood of his SUV while he was participating in a park cleanup in Etobicoke. Newly released wiretap summaries offer a very different explanation for the phone’s disappearance – one that involves drugs, a woman known as “Princess” and a crack house. The Information to Obtain lays out the alleged events leading up to the loss of the cellphone and the scramble to retrieve it. The quotes come from police summaries of the wiretaps, not actual transcripts of the intercepted conversations. 
 
 12:52 a.m., Saturday, April 20: Liban Siyad, 22, calls a woman at 15 Windsor Rd. in Etobicoke, a known crack house, according to police. Unbeknownst to Mr. Siyad, police have been monitoring his cellphone communications for a month now, along with the phones of other alleged members of the Dixon City Bloods gang under a police investigation dubbed Project Traveller. That night, police hear a woman at the bungalow, who they believe is Elena Basso, tell Mr. Siyad that Rob Ford is at her house. She asks Mr. Siyad to come over quickly. 
 
 12:54 a.m.: Mr. Siyad gets a 19-second call from Abdullahi Harun. Mr. Harun, 22, tells him to go to Princess’s house to deliver drugs to Mr. Ford. Mr. Siyad tells him he already knows because he just spoke to Princess, a nickname for Ms. Basso, who has convictions for prostitution and drug trafficking. 
 
 12:59 a.m.: Mr. Siyad tells another associate he’s going to “deal with Rob Ford right now.” 
 
 2:18 a.m.: Mr. Siyad and Mr. Harun talk over the phone again. Mr. Harun tells Mr. Siyad that he has tons of pictures of Mr. Ford doing the “hezza” (a street name for heroin, although the document does not specify this). He also has Mr. Ford smoking on the “dugga.” Mr. Siyad advises that a picture of the mayor would be worth a lot. 
 
 5:51 a.m.: Mr. Siyad calls an unidentified number to say the mayor was “smoking his rocks today” and that he will upload a picture to Instagram, the online photo-sharing site. 
 
 11:37 a.m.: Mr. Siyad receives a call from a number traced to Alessandro Lisi, the mayor’s friend and occasional driver. The mayor’s cellphone is missing, and Mr. Lisi accuses Mr. Siyad and a friend of stealing it while they were all at the Basso house. According to Mr. Lisi, the mayor is freaking out and threatening to “put the heat on Dixon” if the phone isn’t returned. Mr. Siyad responds that he’ll make a call and get the phone back. 
 
 12:21 p.m.: Another call from Mr. Lisi’s number comes in to Mr. Siyad’s phone. This time Mr. Siyad insists that nobody stole the phone and that a member of the Basso family must have it. 
 
 12:51 p.m.: Mr. Lisi calls again to say he will meet Mr. Siyad at “the house” with “one of his boys.” Mr. Siyad agrees to the meeting. 
 
 1:01 p.m.: Mr. Siyad calls an individual identified only as “Juice Man.” They discuss explanations they might offer when they return the phone, such as claiming they thought it belonged to Ms. Basso’s brother Fabio. Juice Man says that they “love and respect” Mr. Ford but have seen the mayor in unflattering situations. Mr. Siyad says he doesn’t appreciate Mr. Lisi’s threats considering they “have a picture of Rob Ford on a pipe.” 
 
 1:22 p.m.: Mr. Lisi calls Mr. Siyad again and is assured the phone has been recovered. Mr. Lisi offers marijuana in return, and they agree to meet at a Country Style coffee shop. 
 
 1:25 p.m.: Mr. Lisi tells Mr. Siyad he’s at the rendezvous point in the back. 
 
 3:01 p.m.: During a conversation between Ahmed Dirie and Mohamed Omar, two other Project Traveller suspects, Mr. Omar says he and Juice Man retrieved the phone and returned it. 
 
 5:31 p.m.: Mr. Siyad calls an unknown male to tell him he received “1.5 of kush” – an unknown quantity of marijuana – from the mayor’s driver. 
 
 7:08 p.m.: Mr. Siyad tells another unknown male that he has “Rob Ford’s kush and that he was drinking with him last night …”
– The Rob Ford saga has taken a big lurch forward with the release of police wiretap files detailing how the Toronto mayor partied and took drugs with gang members—and how his life got pretty complicated as a result. Key allegations from the police files, as detailed by the National Post, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star: The infamous video of Ford smoking crack was apparently set up by gang members who tried to blackmail him—and the mayor offered them "$5,000 and a car" for it. The offer was rejected and the owner said he planned to ask for $150,000—which he could get from media outlets if the mayor didn't pay up. It's not clear whether he did: The original video's whereabouts are unknown, but police recovered a copy from a hard drive. (Ford denies trying to buy the video, calling the latest allegations "an outright lie.") Drug dealers may have had a lot more than the video to blackmail Ford with: One gang member boasts that there are photos of the mayor in "a lot of f---ed up situations," using drugs including heroin, crack, and marijuana. When news reports on the crack video's existence appeared, one of the mayor's top aides began a frantic search and managed to track down the house where a photo showed Ford posing with drug dealers. Unknown intruders attacked the house's occupants days later, though the wiretap files do not link the aide to the attack. After Ford apparently lost his cell phone at a crack house, a friend of the mayor's provided an unknown quantity of marijuana to secure its return. During negotiations, gang members made it clear that they didn't fear threats of police pressure because of their photos of the mayor taking drugs. In a bright spot for Ford, he does not appear to be linked to a murder: One of the gang members he posed with was gunned down outside a nightclub earlier this year, but the police report dismisses any link to the crack video. The latest allegations have left many people wondering why no charges were ever laid against the mayor. "I think any ordinary person who participated in this kind of activity, if it’s founded, would find themselves in very serious trouble," a city councilor says.