Police got tip about 'dirty cop' helping trafficker 15 years before Winnipeg officer's arrest: warrant docs

But the investigating at the clip into Bostock, who is at present in prison house for putrefaction and other offences, was suspended because there was no corroborating evidence.

Over the years that followed, other information continued to come in through police sources — and, in one case, an unrelated wiretap investigation — about an officer believed to be Bostock selling and using drugs, sharing police information and associating with people involved in crime.

That included a tip about an officer named Elston hanging around two drug traffickers in Winnipeg, who described themselves as having "a cop in their pocket," the documents said.

But it wasn't until 2024 that police started the investigation that ultimately ended in Bostock being removed from the force and sent to prison.

Warrant docs reveal more about 'dirty cop'

The search warrant documents also describe an earlier unsuccessful attempt by police to monitor Bostock's cellphone, and minimal details about some internal actions taken against him before his eventual arrest, for an altercation with another officer and sharing information with a person of interest in a missing person investigation.

They also detail what officers found when they searched Bostock's home after his arrest — including a dead man's private journal and a box of Ozempic with someone else's name on it, both believed to have been taken from police scenes.

Bostock, 49, was sentenced in January to seven years in prison, after pleading guilty to a long list of crimes he committed over the last eight years of his career.

The offences he admitted to included fixing traffic tickets, sharing police information, selling drugs and making lewd comments about a photo he shared with two other officers of the topless body of a woman who'd fatally overdosed.

While prosecutors have told court that reports about Bostock from the police service's professional standards unit dated back to 2009, further details about those reports included in search warrant documents could not previously be shared because of a publication ban.

The earliest tip implicating Bostock in the search warrant documents came from a Brandon Police Service informant, who said in 2009 that the "dirty cop" they'd heard about in Winnipeg lived in Waverley Heights and was named Elston.

While there were two Winnipeg police officers living in that neighbourhood at the time, there was only one named Elston, the search warrant documents say. But without other evidence, that investigation ended.

A few years later, another source told police about two brothers who trafficked drugs in Winnipeg and who talked about having a "cop in their pocket."

The source said in 2013 that one of those brothers called it ''a 'great business move' to party with a cop because Elston could provide protection from other drug dealers as well as 'from being popped by the cops,'" the search warrant documents say.

"[He] also stated that if they do get popped, they have dirt on the cop, and if 'Elston' was involved in the arrest or tried to turn it around, they have proof that he is a dirty cop because he 'snorts' with them."

That same source also described another officer who was a friend of Elston and had been seen "smoking weed and partying" with the drug trafficking brothers — though the documents say the identity of that officer was unknown.

By 2018, police got information from confidential sources that took them as far as asking a judge for permission to record data from Bostock's cellphone.

One of those sources described a Winnipeg officer named Elston who was friends with one of two men importing GHB — also known as the date rape drug — to the city, and who would do computer checks to "let them know who police were 'looking at.'"

The officer had also sold the source MDMA, or ecstasy, three times in the past, the documents say.

Around the same time, another source gave police information that mirrored what they'd been told in 2013, about an officer who "hangs out" with the drug trafficking brothers and uses cocaine and MDMA.

But a provincial court judge at the time denied the application related to Bostock's phone, saying she wasn't satisfied there were grounds for her to grant what police asked for.

Information about Bostock continued to come in the following year, when officers in the homicide unit doing a wiretap investigation listened in on a 14-minute phone conversation between two people they described as being involved in organized crime.

At one point, one of the men on that 2019 call talked about two police officers he said he was "OK with" — including one named Elston.

"Elston is the wildest guy you will ever see in your life, he's nuts," the summary of their conversation in the search warrant documents says.

"[The man heard on the call] doesn't even know how he's a cop … [and] has no clue how he maintained his gun and badge."

That man also told a story about running into the officer in uniform at a party where an underage girl was in attendance, who the officer referred to as "some underage p---y," the search warrant documents say.

"Elston took a massive bong rip in uniform and then took four of the partygoers in the back of his cruiser car and drove them to OV Nightclub with the lights on."

Eventually, information about Bostock was even coming from other police officers, the search warrant documents say. In 2022, an officer covertly documenting organized crime members at the Summer of Sound music festival saw Bostock "in a VIP area with various [people who they] believed were organized crime members and drug traffickers."

Another officer who was working crowd management at the festival the same year said Bostock approached him and told him he was "f--ked up on Molly," or MDMA, and having a great time, before returning to a group that included people police said were involved in organized crime.

The next year, information from another source provided more details about an officer sharing police information — including that the source was once warned to "stay away" from a drug trafficker, after someone's "police buddy" saw the trafficker on a list of names, the documents say.

That source said the officer in question would notify members of a drug network of police check stops, and use cocaine with his group of friends.

In 2024 — the year of the investigation that resulted in Bostock's arrest — police continued to get tips about the officer, including from one of the same sources who gave them information the year before.

That source said the officer they talked about would do collections for drug traffickers for a fee, take money to do searches on police computer systems and stop at house parties and use cocaine while on duty with his partner.

While the source identified that officer as "Easton Brostack," the officer who wrote the search warrant documents said he believes "this is a typo or mis-pronunciation and the officer is actually Elston Bostock."

The same year, police started monitoring Bostock's phone as part of their investigation — intercepts that included conversations of him sharing police information and trying to convince other officers to drop traffic tickets.

In one intercepted conversation, Bostock asked another officer if there were any checkstops that night. When the officer said there weren't, Bostock messaged someone else "No checkstops all night sir" and "Coast is clear."

The person who got those messages replied and said they weren't drinking that night, but it was "great to know."

"I know you aren't but others appreciate the info," Bostock replied. "Where's the party?"

When Bostock was finally arrested in November 2024, police searched his home and found drugs, brass knuckles, nunchucks and several iPhones — plus a journal and a box of Ozempic that the search warrant documents say seemed to have been taken from scenes where police had responded to sudden death calls.

The journal appeared to belong to a man whose death Bostock and several other officers were dispatched to in 2023, the search warrant documents say, while the Ozempic was prescribed to another man whose sudden death police responded to in 2024.

While Bostock is currently serving a prison sentence for the offences he's admitted to, three other officers who were charged alongside him still have cases before the courts.

Matthew Kadyniuk has pleaded guilty to breach of trust and theft under $5,000, after the pair stole cash and other items they believed to be evidence during a 2024 "integrity test" conducted by police. He is awaiting sentencing.

Two other officers' charges are still before the courts and have not been proven.

Jonathan Kiazyk is accused of unlawfully entering a residence during an investigation and obstructing a police investigation with Bostock in 2022.

Vernon Strutinsky is charged with entering a residence without authorization for the purpose of evicting its tenants with Bostock in 2023, which police said involved leaving notes threatening the tenants with arrest if they didn't comply.

Reporter

---

---