Savoie committed suicide in his office at the RCMP headquarters in Ottawa after his links to organized crime were exposed by investigative journalists from The Fifth Estate television program.

[3] In 1987, reflecting the new policy of glasnost ("openness") in the Soviet Union, Savoie took part in a joint Soviet-Canadian investigation of a drug trafficking ring concerning the vory v zakone ("thieves in law", i.e., Russian organized crime).

The investigation ended with a large shipment of hashish, that had arrived from Odessa aboard a Soviet freighter, being seized by the RCMP at the Port of Montreal.

[5] When Savoie was promoted to be the chief of the RCMP's Montreal Drug Section in January 1989, there were concerns by other Mounties about his relationship with Leithman.

On a few occasions during (a) trial of Colombian drug traffickers, Inspector Savoie made impromptu visits to the courtroom".

[6] In a report dated 8 October 1989, Savoie stated that he had first met Leithman regarding Ross in late September 1989.

After his conversation with Leithman, Inspector Savoie explained that he had decided to meet with Allan Ross to turn him into an informant".

[3] Savoie's report appeared to be part of an attempt to build a defense should his contacts with Ross and Leithman be exposed.

[9] One of Savoie's subordinates, Constable Jorge Leite, was also corrupt, selling information to the Cali Cartel of Colombia, which had a strong presence in Montreal at the time.

[11] Inès Cecila Barbosa, known as La Madrina ("the Godmother"), an agent of the Cali Cartel, served as their money launderer in Montreal, and it was to her that Leite had been selling information to.

[12] In April 1991, the RCMP was monitoring a 240-kilogram shipment of cocaine from the Cali Cartel to the West End Gang as part of Project Carton/Valpro, which it "lost track of" while Savoie met with Leithman three times the same week that the West End Gang received the cocaine that the RCMP had lost sight of.

[3] In April 1991, a shipment of cocaine from Colombia hidden in hammocks worth $410 million arrived at the port of Montreal, which the RCMP was aware of.

In early May 1991, another shipment of cocaine from Colombia worth $340 million dollars arrived at the port of Montreal hidden in aluminum silicate powder that the RCMP was also aware of.

[7] On 5 May 1991, an Internal Affairs investigation led by Inspector Yves Roussel began with the aim of finding the "mole".

[3] On 5 May 1991, Leithman told someone whose name is still redacted on the report that he “controlled a high-ranking member of the RCMP, a regional director who sold information to the West End Gang" and "he had been paid for his services for several years.

[6] An informer in the Montreal underworld mentioned that Leithman had in his office safe numerous photocopies of C237 forms (the daily reports that Mounties are required to submit to their superiors about the status of their investigations) and had given them to Ross.

[15] Another informer mentioned that he heard rumours in the underworld that Leithman had waved about C237 forms in his office as a symbol of his power while he also provided them to Ross.

[17] Leite was clearly aware that he was under investigation by Internal Affairs as he claimed to be unable to work due to marital problems starting on 12 May 1991 as he went about methodically preparing his flight from Canada, which occurred on 22 May 1991.

[6] The journalist Daniel Burke of The Fifth Estate television show heard rumours that a senior Mountie was working for Ross, and began an investigation.

[21] On Friday, 18 December 1992, Savoie told a fellow Mountie that he was feeling depressed because a journalist was going to run an unflattening story about his relationship with an informer.

[22] He pressed his service revolver against his temple while wrapping his gun through the sleeve of his uniform to silence the blast before pulling the trigger.

[1] Savoie's suicide was not noticed at first as the secretaries mistook the gunshot for a desk drawer being slammed shut, and his corpse was only discovered fifteen minutes after his death when the Internal Affairs detectives went to his office to see why he had not arrived for the interview.

[24] Savoie, who had been the subject of an internal police investigation for several months, killed himself the day before CBC aired another Fifth Estate program on drug trafficking which further implicated him, alleging that he had warned Allan Ross that U.S. authorities were preparing an indictment against him.

[1] A Montreal police detective, John Westlake, who had known Savoie explained his suicide: "He had no choice but to kill himself because of the circumstances of his family and the disgrace of going to jail.

[23] Burke stated about Savoie's suicide: "For all I know, it may have been a choice his colleagues forced him to make because they didn't want him to reveal further corruption.

[2] Even more humiliating for the RCMP was the fact that journalists from The Fifth Estate TV show exposed Savoie rather than his fellow policemen.

[1] Knuckle wrote: "Inspector Claude Savoie is the first senior RCMP officer to be caught on the take and the highest ranking Mountie to have his reputation marred by scandal and corruption".

"[27] In December 1993, the RCMP presented a 75-page report about l'affaire de Savoie that was so embarrassing that the Solicitor General Herb Gray only allowed a 2 page summary to be published.

[3] The journalist Yves Lavigne wrote: "No one knows how many police officers in all levels of law enforcement were recruited by Inspector Savoie to provide information to drug smugglers and sabotage investigations, or whether these moles are still in place.

He kept more secrets in death than he did in life and his legacy may still haunt the RCMP today, as his hand-picked moles gnaw away at its effectiveness in the war against drug-rich criminals".