A long-term investigation by The Globe and Mail that started well before the recent allegations that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was caught on tape smoking crack cocaine has found that all three of his older siblings were connected to the illegal drug trade in the past.
Though the mayor himself wasn't tied to the drug trade in the piece, his older brother Doug, a member of Toronto's city council, a de-facto spokesman for the mayor and a powerful force in city politics, was allegedly a fairly large scale dealer of hash in the '80s.
This is despite the fact that the family grew up in Etobicoke, a wealthy suburb of Toronto, and the family's patriarch, ran a successful label company and held public office.
Sources told The Globe that they had bought directly from Doug Ford, and had seen him handle large quantities of the drug. A street dealer, asked to describe the hierarchy of dealers in the neighborhood said about Doug that "He’d be at the top."
Another brother, Randy, was also identified as a dealer and was charged in relation to a drug-related kidnapping.
His sister, Kathy, has been part of a string of bizarre drug-related incidents. Her long-time boyfriend, a convicted dealer himself, was charged with another man of shooting her in the face, and has been charged with threatening the mayor's life. The article also alleges that she associated with white supremacists in the '80s.
Additionally, David Price, a friend of Doug's who sources identified as a participant in the drug dealing enterprise, is an official advisor to the mayor's office as the "director of logistics and operations."
The Globe wrote to Doug Ford outlining what sources said, and received a response from his lawyer alleging the allegations were false. When approached by a senior Globe editor to explain the purpose of the research, Doug "rebuffed our entreaties, and aggressively threatened legal action."
His brother Rob and his spokesman declined to comment, despite being approached several times, as did David Price.
Read the full piece here, and the Globe's explanation of the investigation here
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