RCMP Const. Yahsif Israel Mane Monter sat down to interview a witness in a major police operation called Project OHELIX.
It was late 2019 and investigators had just dismantled what they alleged was a large labour trafficking ring in the Hamilton area.
As many as 80 foreign workers from Mexico were housed in bug- and vermin-infested conditions while being sent to workplaces across southern Ontario, police said at the time. Officers criminally charged six people under worker exploitation laws.
Monter, having learned how the Hamilton trafficking scheme operated, then went and started his own, police now allege.
Monter was arrested in May 2022 on human trafficking and a slew of other charges, including firearm violations and animal cruelty related to his dog-breeding business, which went by the name “Taskforce Rottweilers.”
According to police material used to obtain a search warrant, copies of which were obtained by the Star, investigators claim Monter instructed the complainant in the case to enter Canada as a tourist — and then paid him less than $4 an hour to live and work in substandard conditions.
The alleged victims from the OHELIX bust that Monter helped with had also flown in from Mexico and entered Canada as “visitors,” according to police.
Monter “learned how that labour trafficking ring operated and then did it himself,” the search warrant materials allege.
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Monter, who has been released on bail ahead of his scheduled May 2024 trial, declined to comment. His lawyer said he “will be pleading not guilty.”
Monter will fight 'these allegations in court'
The RCMP said Monter was suspended with pay from his policing duties amid an internal investigation into his conduct, which is still ongoing. Around the time of Monter’s arrest, his alleged victim had been living in a Toronto shelter, according to municipal records seen by the Star.
The Star successfully fought in court to access the Informations-to-Obtain in Monter’s case, as part of an investigation into a recent spike in labour trafficking prosecutions. The materials had previously been subject to a sealing order shielding them from public view. ITOs contain the investigative evidence police must provide to a judge when seeking authorization for search warrants.
A post from the Instagram page of Taskforce Rottweilers, Yahsif Israel Mane Monter's dog-breeding business.
Taskforce_rottweilers InstagramThe information contained in the ITOs “are merely allegations,” Monter’s lawyer, Peter Thorning, said in an email.
“We will look forward to testing these allegations in a court of law.”
The alleged victim in Monter’s case is originally from Mexico; the Star is referring to him as Eduardo Hernandez, as his real identity is covered by a publication ban.
Worker drawn from Mexico by a Facebook post
Hernandez told police that his ordeal began with a Facebook post looking for people to clean and take care of animals in Canada.
Although the post specifically requested female applicants, Hernandez responded and was later contacted by Monter who offered him a job taking care of around a dozen dogs for $30 a day, cash. When Hernandez asked if he would need a work permit, Monter told him no, the warrant materials say.
Instead, Monter allegedly issued Hernandez a letter of invitation to enter Canada as a visitor. The letter included a copy of his RCMP business card as well as a separate business card for his role with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. It was signed with his RCMP badge number, according to the search warrant material.
In November 2021, Hernandez arrived in Canada accompanied by an English bulldog that Monter had instructed him to bring — after allegedly providing him with a fraudulent doctors’ note so the dog could travel in the cabin as a service animal. From the airport, Monter took Hernandez back to his home in Georgina, a town on Lake Simcoe.
Here, Hernandez was tasked with taking care of two dogs and 26 puppies, which were later put up for sale through Monter’s business. Hernandez’s workload required 12-hour shifts with no breaks. He slept in the same room as the female dogs in his care.
“When the puppies would die, (Monter) made (Hernandez) place the dogs in the compost for disposal,” the warrant materials say.
Monter threatened and intimidated worker, police allege
Over the next four and a half months, Hernandez worked almost non-stop — for which, in total, he received $5,000, police allege. Officers calculated that this worked out to an hourly wage of $3.18 an hour.
While Hernandez asked on several occasions to leave the Georgina house, the environment Monter created was one of fear, dependency and isolation, the ITOs allege. Along with Hernandez, Monter recruited two other individuals from Mexico to work for him, one of whom he once threatened to make “disappear” and leave her corpse in the garden. The woman was later fired for not bringing special boots to clean up dog feces in the backyard.
Monter also allegedly belittled Hernandez for his sexual orientation and told him that if he tried to leave, he would not survive in Canada due to the weather and his lack of money. Monter would leave weapons around the house, and inform workers that he was previously a police officer in Mexico, where he “had a lot of friends,” the search warrant materials state. He also claimed he investigated “narcos” in his role with the RCMP and that his girlfriend worked in immigration.
Monter would also make “grand gestures” to compel Hernandez to continue working for him — a common feature of exploitative relationships, the warrant materials say. After buying a rural property in Mallorytown, about 65 kilometres east of Kingston, Monter told Hernandez he would get him a farm workers’ permit and put him in school to learn English, two promises he did not deliver on.
Monter's side hustle had already attracted the attention of a tipster who, just before Hernandez arrived, called animal welfare. The tipster said they “observed approximately 52 dogs being housed in a single-family dwelling,” according to the warrant materials.
Upon learning of an animal control inspection, Monter allegedly instructed Hernandez to move numerous dogs to a neighbouring property, and forbade him from speaking to the inspectors. No violations were identified.
What police found searching the house
By April, Hernandez was worn down. He was no longer regularly bathing or eating, and feared calling his family back home.
“He reported being able to see his ribs in the mirror and being shocked at his state,” the search warrant materials say.
Hernadez escaped. He told Monter that his brother was visiting Niagara Falls from Mexico. When Monter granted him permission to go visit, Hernandez called an Uber and went to Newmarket instead. From there, he took a bus to Toronto, where he wrote a letter to the FCJ Refugee Centre. A staffer at the centre alerted the police about a possible labour-trafficking case.
After Hernandez fled, Monter texted him on the messaging platform WhatsApp. Monter falsely accused Hernandez of stealing $6,000 from his residence, according to the warrant material. He threatened to report the theft to police and told Hernandez “he is messing with the wrong person” — evidence, police allege, of Monter’s attempts to “further intimidate” Hernandez.
The ITOs say police searched Monter’s Keswick home and seized four Glock magazines and one assault rifle magazine, all of which the RCMP confirmed did not belong to the force. On Monter’s cellphone, police found emailed copies of an apparently fraudulent COVID vaccination certificate, which Monter appeared to be issuing to prospective workers in Mexico, the search warrant materials allege.
Police also found a document with the heading, “OHELIX Witness Interview Questions,” from the alleged Hamilton-area labour-trafficking ring he had helped break up in 2019. He was not a lead investigator in Project OHELIX but he assisted with the bust and with interviews because he spoke Spanish.
Police obtained additional judicial approval to search the laptop for more evidence related to Project OHELIX, alleging that Monter had “acquired documents and information from this investigation and stored it on this device in order to assist him with running his own labour trafficking ring.”
The Star does not know what, if any, additional records police uncovered from the laptop.
The provincial Ministry of the Attorney General declined to answer questions about the case, saying it “would be inappropriate to comment” on matters that are before the court.
Hernandez filed a claim for unpaid wages with Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. According to the ministry, “Bullyforce,” a company registered to Monter, owed a worker around $50,000.
