Former RCMP Officer Charged in National Security Investigation

A former RCMP officer in British Columbia has been arrested and faces multiple charges after being accused of sharing what police are calling “protected” or “classified” information.

Michael Scoretz faces 13 charges after investigators said work-related materials were found at his home on Bowen Island, just off the coast of Vancouver, the RCMP said in a June 4 press release.

The 47-year-old former officer was charged with six counts of unauthorized communication of special operational information and seven counts of breach of trust, police said.

Scoretz was working with the RCMP’s Pacific Region Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) between August 2020 and February 2023. He joined the federal police force in 2009 and retired last year. The RCMP alleges the information sharing occurred while he was a member of INSET.

The Mounties said Scoretz was bound by confidentiality under the Security of Information Act during his tenure with the team and allege that he disclosed protected or classified information to people he was “in a relationship with.”

None of the allegations are linked to ongoing national security inquiries, and no investigations have been jeopardized, police said.

INSET Pacific Region Insp. Bryan Pyatt described the situation as “unsettling for the public and for fellow law enforcement officers.”

“It is deeply troubling when a member of law enforcement is drawn into any kind of criminal allegations,” Pyatt said. “However, the results of this investigation show a deep commitment by our investigators to hold individuals accountable no matter their employment or background.”  

The RCMP has declined to release any further details or comment further while the case is before the courts.

INSET consists of Canada’s multi-agency law enforcement and intelligence units that bring together investigators and analysts from municipal and provincial police services, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the Canada Border Services Agency.

These specialized teams, led by the RCMP, have been in operation since 2002 and are positioned in key metropolitan centres across the country—Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal—where national security risks are highest. 

The main responsibility of INSET units is to monitor, disrupt, and investigate threats to national security, including terrorism, interference by foreign entities, espionage, and the funding of terrorist activities. The units also investigate drug trafficking and human smuggling operations.

The Pacific Region INSET unit primarily operates in British Columbia and the Yukon.