From left to right, Raymond Pollard, Steve Correia, Richard Benoit, Ned Maodus, Joseph Miched and John Schertzer. (Ron Bull/Toronto Star)

Montreal police raised a red flag about allegedly corrupt Toronto drug squad officers in 1997, but to no avail, newly obtained documents show.

The since disbanded drug squad was the subject of Canada's largest-ever police corruption probe after complaints from drug dealers eventually triggered an internal investigation by a special task force.

A 2004 Montreal police document, obtained by CBC News and the Toronto Star, reveals that the force also alerted Toronto police to troubles in late 1997 after they had a "suspicious" encounter with two drug squad officers who seemed singularly focused on securing the cash from a suspect's safety deposit box.

The report marks the first evidence that law enforcement officials expressed concerns as early as the late 1990s about the infamous Toronto Police Service's Central Field Command Drug Squad. It wasn't until years later that a task force was formed and charges were laid in 2004 against six squad members for allegedly robbing drug dealers.

It raises questions about why police supervisors didn't investigate Montreal's informal complaint further.

"I think when an independent police agency, a credible police agency like the Montreal police, raises a red flag about behaviour, that they had some concern about behaviour, I think a lot should be done," said retired Toronto Sgt. James Cassells, who served on the special task force.

The incident began in early November 1997, when Toronto Det. John Schertzer's drug squad team arrested a drug dealer in Toronto after seizing five kilograms of cocaine smuggled from Montreal.

Schertzer's team seized a key to a Montreal bank safety deposit box. The team alerted Montreal police about the seizure and then travelled there to seek help gathering more evidence.

'Bewildering' case

When the detective arrived with colleague, Const. Steve Correia, he insisted their team would take the money back to Toronto.

However, Montreal police were wary of Schertzer and Correia, refused to help them, and called Toronto police supervisors to complain.

Schertzer and Correia are two of six former Toronto drug officers who were charged in 2004, accused of a conspiracy to rob and beat drug suspects between 1995 and 1999 in what anti-corruption investigators have dubbed "a crime spree."

Criminal proceedings were stayed in early 2008 because of the "glacial pace of the prosecution," according to Ontario Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer. The former officers' lawyers, however, are back before Ontario's Court of Appeal on Monday after the Crown launched an appeal in hopes of getting another trial.

"[The Montreal incident] was a bewildering sort of case," said retired RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Neily, who led the task force.

"It's unusual to have one police service finding itself in a challenge assisting another police service. That in and of itself is not evidence, but it's unusual."

According to the 2004 document, Montreal officers insisted the cash be photographed, counted and delivered to a judge before securely transferring the cash to Toronto.

"[The two officers] did not even want to question [witnesses] or even look at the seized evidence directly related to their case. Their only interest was whatever contents were in the safe deposit boxes," the Montreal report says.

When the two Toronto officers refused to follow procedure, tensions mounted, and the Montreal police asked the duo to leave the city.

"That's not the way things work," says retired Montreal police supervisor Andre Bouchard. "It's got to go back in front of the judge where he adjudicates, so it's up him to say 'OK, the officers can bring back this money to Toronto. Sign here.'"

"That's not what they wanted to do. If you read the papers … it's that they just wanted to raid the two banks," said Bouchard, who was not directly involved in the incident but has reviewed the case.

Frustrated by the Montreal force, Schertzer and Correia turned to the RCMP in Montreal to request their help in securing access to the bank account. That request was also denied.

The 2004 document, a Crown brief written by Montreal police's internal affairs after re-investigating the 1997 incident at the request of the Toronto Police Service special task force, concluded that the two Toronto drug officers knowingly trumped up false information to get the search warrant in Montreal.

'Only interested' in safety box

A statement released by Correia's and Schertzer's lawyers said, "Neither I nor my client can comment on any aspect of this case, including your immediate interest, because the matter is still before the courts."

While entering Ontario's Court of Appeal on Monday, Schertzer told CBC News, "You keep printing lies. Libel and slander!"

But in Schertzer's own report, written two weeks after the Montreal incident, Schertzer details his side of the story. In the four-page report responding to queries from his superiors on the informal complaint, Schertzer accuses the Montreal police of being rude, unhelpful and even questions the Montreal officers' motives.

"My opinion from these two past days are that they were only interested in the safety deposit box and the cash inside of it," the report, dated Nov. 17, 1997, states.

He describes the encounter with a Montreal officer after being told the safety deposit box would be held there and he is asked to leave.

"I told him that this was bullshit, and that I have ended it here and thanked him for his hospitality that was dog shit and left," Schertzer writes.

Schertzer and his colleague left Montreal empty-handed.

Schertzer's supervisor at the time, then Det.-Sgt. Bob Spires says he informed then Deputy Chief Mike Boyd, now a chief in Edmonton, about the Montreal complaint but didn't know whether it was followed up.

Boyd flatly rejects that and in an email to the CBC insists: "I was never in receipt of a complaint from the Montreal police related to this case." He refused to elaborate while the case remains before the courts.

A task force source, however, said they found no evidence of further investigation or that Spires ever passed on Montreal's concerns.

The Montreal police incident came only months after the Toronto Police Service Complaints Bureau warned Spires and the Deputy Chief's office about 16 separate complaints filed by members of the public against Schertzer and his team.

For retired Sgt. James Cassells, the Montreal complaint clearly warranted an investigation into possible shady dealings. "In police work, we call that a clue. What more do you need?"