Former Surrey RCMP officer gets 18-month sentence for breach of trust

A former Surrey RCMP officer who admitted to breach of trust has been sentenced to 18 months in jail after a B.C. Supreme Court judge accepted a joint sentencing submission from Crown and defence counsel.

Dawwd Alaaeldine Soukary pleaded guilty in April to accessing confidential police databases and files for purposes inconsistent with his duties between Nov. 30, 2020, and his arrest on Jan. 27, 2021. Justice Murray B. Blok also ordered a DNA sample and a $200 victim surcharge. The Crown stayed the remaining 12 charges.

The court heard that the RCMP received an August 2020 tip, supported by CCTV footage, alleging Soukary had bought a significant quantity of drugs for two suspected criminals. Investigators found no additional evidence to support that allegation and no drug-trafficking charges resulted. Soukary was then a probationary officer with Surrey RCMP.

Police mounted a fictitious undercover operation in which Soukary was paired with an officer posing as corrupt. Between October 2020 and January 2021, investigators staged 43 scenarios involving the pair and 16 involving the sham drug investigation. In the final scenario, Soukary was given $72,000 to buy a kilogram of cocaine from a fictional trafficker.

According to the decision, Soukary paid $63,000, gave his undercover partner $1,000 and kept $8,000. He was arrested soon afterward with the $8,000. The purchase money and cocaine remained under RCMP control.

A search of Soukary’s phone found he had repeatedly sent photographs of confidential information to the two people named in the case. There was no evidence the information compromised active RCMP investigations or led to further criminal conduct. Defence counsel argued the operation normalized police corruption and raised a possible entrapment issue, but Blok found the proposed sentence reasonable and in the public interest.