Former Surrey RCMP Officer Sentenced to 18 Months for Breach of Trust After Undercover Sting

Sarah Desjardins

8/31/20264 min read

A former Surrey RCMP officer who admitted to accessing confidential police information and disclosing it to criminal associates has been sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Dawwd Soukary, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of breach of trust after originally facing 13 charges related to drug trafficking, breach of trust, theft over $5,000, cannabis distribution and conspiracy to commit robbery.

In a decision delivered Thursday in New Westminster, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Murray Blok accepted a joint sentencing submission from Crown and defence, finding that an actual jail sentence was required given the nature of the offence.

According to the ruling, the breach of trust count covered a series of incidents between 2020 and 2021 in which Soukary accessed confidential police information and disclosed it to people described as criminal associates.

At the time, Soukary was only months into his policing career. He was a probationary RCMP officer and was supposed to be working under the supervision of a field trainer.

Tip Sparked Internal Investigation

The investigation into Soukary began in August 2020 after Mounties received a tip supported by CCTV footage.

According to the ruling, the tip alleged that Soukary had participated in the purchase of a significant amount of drugs on behalf of suspected criminals.

The tipster also told police that Soukary had said he intended to use police databases to obtain information for his associates once he was no longer under direct supervision.

Those allegations led the RCMP to launch a covert operation designed to test Soukary’s intentions and conduct.

A Fictitious Undercover Operation

Police created a fake undercover investigation targeting a fictitious major drug trafficker. Soukary was brought into the operation and paired with a partner who was, in reality, pretending to be a corrupt undercover officer.

According to the court decision, the fictitious partner told Soukary that he was leaking confidential police information to his own criminal associates.

Soukary then indicated that he wanted to do the same.

The sting was extensive. Between Oct. 28, 2020, and Jan. 27, 2021, Soukary participated in 43 undercover scenarios with the pretend corrupt partner, along with 16 additional scenarios tied to the sham drug investigation.

The operation was structured to observe how Soukary would respond when placed in a setting where police corruption appeared to be normalized.

Cocaine Deal Scenario Led to Arrest

The sting culminated in a staged exchange involving a fictitious drug trafficker.

Soukary believed he had been placed in position to buy one kilogram of cocaine for $70,000. According to the ruling, he believed the real street price was significantly lower and told his partner that if he could negotiate a better deal, he would keep the difference and split it with them.

The RCMP provided Soukary with $72,000 for the transaction.

Soukary negotiated the price down to $63,000, kept $8,000 and gave $1,000 to his fictitiously corrupt partner, the court heard.

Police arrested him afterward and recovered the cash from all parties involved in the undercover scenario.

Confidential Information Found on Phone

After Soukary’s arrest, investigators seized and searched his phone.

According to the ruling, they found that he had repeatedly texted confidential police information to two associates. That information included police intelligence bulletins, file materials, database information and details obtained through unauthorized police database searches.

The court found there was no evidence that the information Soukary shared compromised active investigations or directly led to criminal conduct.

Justice Blok also noted that while Soukary understood the risk of violence connected to sharing confidential police information, there was no evidence that anyone was harmed because of the disclosures.

Still, the court treated the conduct as a serious breach of the trust placed in police officers.

Crown Says Conduct Violated Public Trust

In its submissions, the Crown acknowledged several mitigating factors, including Soukary’s lack of a prior criminal record, his youth at the time of the offence and his guilty plea.

But prosecutors emphasized that his conduct represented a serious violation of his role as a police officer.

The Crown argued that Soukary’s actions were a flagrant breach of the trust placed in him when he was given access to sensitive law enforcement information.

For police officers, access to confidential databases and intelligence is granted for public safety purposes. Misusing that access, the court heard, undermines both investigations and public confidence in policing.

Defence Points to Background and Sting Design

Soukary’s defence pointed to his personal background, saying he had grown up in underprivileged conditions.

Defence also argued that the undercover operation was designed in a way that created an environment where police corruption appeared normal, suggesting that the sting influenced the context in which Soukary made decisions.

Justice Blok considered those submissions, but ultimately found that the agreed sentence was appropriate and fell within the range of comparable cases.

He concluded that a sentence involving real jail time was necessary.

Former Officer Resigned in 2021

Soukary resigned from the RCMP in 2021.

According to the decision, he has since moved to Ottawa, where he co-parents a daughter with his ex-wife and works at a soccer and athletic gym.

The sentence brings to a close a case that began with an internal police investigation into a new officer and ended with a criminal conviction for betraying the responsibilities of the job.

For the court, the central issue was not only the information Soukary shared, but the position he held when he shared it.

Police officers are entrusted with access to sensitive information, investigative tools and public authority. In this case, the judge found that Soukary used that access in a way that crossed a criminal line.

The 18-month sentence reflects the court’s conclusion that violating that trust required more than a conditional or community-based penalty — it required incarceration.

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