New details emerge about alleged Project South plot to kill Ontario jail guard

This piece is one part of continuing coverage by Global News examining alleged Toronto police corruption. More stories about Project South are available here. 

New details are emerging about the alleged plot to kill a jail guard that sparked Project South, after an Ontario judge agreed to unseal some documents from the investigation into alleged police corruption.

In a ruling, the judge agreed with parts of a request from a media consortium to loosen a publication ban on evidence found by York Regional Police as they probed alleged wrongdoing by police officers, a jail guard and various others.

The Information to Obtain (ITO) includes hundreds of pages submitted by Project South investigators to an Ontario judge as officers sought to execute a slew of search warrants.

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Project South was announced by York Regional Police in February, with the arrests of seven current Toronto police officers and one retired officer, among others.

Among the claims that can now be made public are details of how a guard at a Toronto jail allegedly helped an inmate with whom police say she had a previous relationship arrange a hit on one of her colleagues.

The documents appear to show connections between the correctional worker, suspected organized crime and police corruption, although the worker has not been charged.

Project South was initiated after York Regional Police began to probe an armed break-in at the Toronto-area home of a man who worked at the Toronto South Detention Centre in June 2025.

Investigators alleged that Gurpreet Singh, an inmate at the jail who police say has links to ex-Olympic snowboarder and alleged international drug lord Ryan Wedding, had a motive to try to arrange for the unnamed correctional officer to be shot and used a web of connections to arrange for a hit.

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At the centre of the chain of police investigation theories is Nishwant Dosanjh, who was a Toronto South Detention Centre guard.

Neither Singh nor Dosanjh have been charged in relation to the allegations made in the York Regional Police’s court documents.

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Nonetheless, York investigators alleged Dosanjh had some form of relationship with Singh before he was arrested over Wedding’s alleged drug network, pending extradition to the United States.

The documents claim she took a photograph of her colleague’s vehicle. That photo was allegedly used to obtain his address, which was given to a gun-for-hire network.

None of the allegations or evidence involving Singh or Dosanjh have been heard by a jury and tested in court. The claims are based on initial beliefs held by police as they sought to obtain a search warrant via the ITO.

The investigators’ theories focus on an alleged close relationship Dosanjh shared with Singh inside the Toronto jail.

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Dosanjh was known in Toronto South to “arrange her schedule” to work on the wing Singh was housed on “as much as possible” and spent “extraordinarily long periods” of time with the inmate, investigators wrote. The two, the documents claim, would often spend time together one-on-one.

“Her TSDC supervisor has described these sustained encounters as well outside the norm for inmate/ CO contact,” police said in the documents, adding: “Singh appears to exercise a degree of influence if not power over Dosanjh, which is anomalous given their roles.”

In April 2025, before the Project South investigation began, a correctional officer at Toronto South Detention Centre filed a report after becoming “suspicious” of Dosanjh.

The correctional officer said Dosanjh had told them about how Singh had allegedly given her “expensive gifts, payments for cosmetic surgery and travel,” according to the ITO.

During their months-long investigation, detectives with York Regional Police said they had watched extensive video surveillance images showing Singh and Dosanjh “engaging in prolonged conversations” together regularly.

The documents list nine separate conversations police say were captured between the two on video between October and November 2025. In fact, police wrote, they observed a total of 156 different times the two spoke between Oct. 22, 2025, and Jan. 25, 2026, including three times when the pair spoke for over an hour.

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The same documents allege Dosanjh had an “animosity” toward the jail guard who was the target of the June 2025 armed break-in that triggered Project South in the first place.

The identity of the guard targeted in the alleged plot is protected by a publication ban.

In their bid for permission to execute a slew of search warrants, York Regional Police investigators said they believed it was Dosanjh who took a photograph of a fellow officer’s license plate at the Toronto South Detention Centre.

They alleged she then passed the image to Singh, who shared it with either a man who has alleged links to the tow truck industry or Brian Da Costa — described by investigators as “a key figure in the criminal network operating within the Greater Toronto Area with, in fact, significant international ties.”

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Police believe that was how the plate was then allegedly given to Const. Timothy Barnhardt, who — it is claimed — used his access to databases to work out the address of the jail guard, allowing a gun-for-hire network to plan a hit on his home.

“This sequence of events supports the belief that the photographed licence plate information was passed from Dosanjh to Singh, relayed to Da Costa … and subsequently circulated among Singh’s associates,” the documents allege.

“This relationship, combined with Dosanjh’s access, motive, and the flow of information between these parties, supports the belief that Dosanjh was the originating source of the licence plate information.”

Lawyers for both Singh and Dosanjh have previously denied the allegations and pointed out that no charges have been laid.

Dosanjh’s lawyer said her client “denies any allegations of criminal or professional misconduct and adamantly maintains her complete innocence.”

She added that Dosanjh “co-operated fully” with the police investigation and was on paid leave since February when, her lawyer said, she made allegations against a colleague.

“Ms. Dosanjh was identified as a person of interest in the Project South investigation. She has cooperated fully with investigators, including by providing investigators with unfettered access to the contents of a cellular phone that was seized from her residence,” the statement continued.

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“Ms. Dosanjh has not been charged criminally, and there is no indication criminal charges will ever be laid.”

Singh’s lawyer also strenuously denied the allegations laid out in the documents and said Singh has not been charged in Project South.

“The fact that Mr. Singh has not been charged with any offence in Canada more than four months after the execution of the warrants is the clearest response to the allegations contained in the information to obtain,” he previously wrote in a statement.

One officer charged in Project South has pleaded guilty to two charges: theft under $5,000 for stealing a cellphone and breach of trust by stealing “found property.”