Joseph Philippe Claude Savoie (1943 – 21 December 1992) was a Canadian career policeman and senior anti-drug officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), while simultaneously a co-conspirator with the West End Gang of Montreal and its leader Allan "The Weasel" Ross. Savoie died by suicide in his office at the RCMP headquarters in Ottawa after his links to organized crime were exposed by investigative journalists from The Fifth Estate television program. The exposure of Savoie shattered the Canadian people's image of the Mounties as an incorruptible police force and was described by the Canadian scholar Steven Schneider as "the biggest case of police corruption in Canada for years".

Police career Savoie was born in Montreal and joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1965. The French-Canadian Savoie worked as the RCMP's liaison officer at the Canadian embassy in Paris until 1986. In 1986, he had become one of the most senior officers working in the RCMP's anti-drug squad in Montreal. Upon his return to Montreal, Savoie experienced financial problems. In 1987, reflecting the new policy of glasnost ("openness") in the Soviet Union, Savoie took part in a joint Soviet-Canadian investigation of a drug trafficking ring concerning the vory v zakone ("thieves in law", i.e., Russian organized crime). Savoie twice visited Moscow to hold discussions with Soviet Militsiya officers. The investigation ended with a large shipment of hashish, that had arrived from Odessa aboard a Soviet freighter, being seized by the RCMP at the Port of Montreal.

Corrupt policeman Through his work, Savoie came to know a prominent Montreal lawyer, Sidney Leithman, who usually defended gangsters. Although it was a major breach of ethics on the part of both men, Leithman and Savoie started to trade information, with Leithman informing on his own clients, while Savoie told Leithman much about what the RCMP knew about Montreal gangsters. The trading of information came to cause tensions between American and Canadian law enforcement as the Americans complained that whatever information they shared with the Canadians always seemed to reach Montreal organized crime.

When Savoie was promoted to be the chief of the RCMP's Montreal Drug Section in January 1989, there were concerns by other Mounties about his relationship with Leithman. A secret RCMP report from 1993 states: "From that moment on, his meetings with Sidney Leithman became more frequent. It was not unusual to see Leithman meeting with Inspector Savoie inside his Montreal Drug Section office. On at least one occasion, such a meeting took place behind closed doors and lasted more than a half an hour. When his clients were arrested, Leithman arrived quickly at the office of Inspector Savoie. On a few occasions during (a) trial of Colombian drug traffickers, Inspector Savoie made impromptu visits to the courtroom".

Later in 1989, at a meeting in Leithman's office, Savoie was introduced to West End Gang leader Allan "The Weasel" Ross, where it was agreed that Savoie would work for Ross, selling information in exchange for a regular salary of $200,000. In a report dated 8 October 1989, Savoie stated that he had first met Leithman regarding Ross in late September 1989. Writing in the third person, Savoie stated: "“Inspector Savoie stated that he had first met with attorney Sidney Leithman concerning Allan Ross at the end of September 1989. He reported that, according to Leithman, Ross was worried about the American investigation being conducted on him. After his conversation with Leithman, Inspector Savoie explained that he had decided to meet with Allan Ross to turn him into an informant". Savoie further wrote that he met Ross alone in Leithman's office on 6 October 1989, but nothing came of the meeting. Savoie's report appeared to be part of an attempt to build a defense should his contacts with Ross and Leithman be exposed. Savoie also claimed that he had the approval of a RCMP superintendent to meet Ross alone, a claim that the superintendent later denied. In January 1990, Savoie took a lavish three week long vacation without his wife.

Insistence by American law enforcement that there was a "leak" in the RCMP grew more intense after Savoie was promoted, and finally reached the point where the Americans refused to share information with the RCMP on the grounds that there must be a "mole" inside of the Mounties. As the director of the RCMP's national anti-drug squad, Savoie had access to all of the RCMP's investigations across Canada and access to information being shared by the American, European and Latin American police services as well. Despite the extra income, Savoie continued to live modestly and spent most of the bribe money on his mistress, although the Canadian journalist Robert Knuckle noted: "...that Savoie handled even that extravagance with discretion". Savoie was well liked and respected by his colleagues, and many found it difficult to believe that a man who was known for living modestly could be corrupt.

One RCMP officer, Carl MacLeod, once asked for Savoie to provide him with $3,500 in flash money to assist with an investigation that was about to expand from Toronto into Montreal, which Savoie refused. At the time, MacLeod felt that the rejection was due to bureaucratic politics, but has since speculated that Savoie's rejection of his request – which stymied his investigation – might had been due to corruption. One of Savoie's subordinates, Constable Jorge Leite, was also corrupt, selling information to the Cali Cartel of Colombia, which had a strong presence in Montreal at the time. Leite, a former Marine with the Portuguese Navy, had joined the RCMP in 1987, which valued him as a man fluent in four languages, namely Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English. Inès Cecila Barbosa, known as La Madrina ("the Godmother"), an agent of the Cali Cartel, served as their money launderer in Montreal, and it was to her that Leite had been selling information to. Savoie is also believed to have sold information to Barbosa. In April 1991, the RCMP was monitoring a 240-kilogram shipment of cocaine from the Cali Cartel to the West End Gang as part of Project Carton/Valpro, which it "lost track of" while Savoie met with Leithman three times the same week that the West End Gang received the cocaine that the RCMP had lost sight of.

In April 1991, a shipment of cocaine hidden in hammocks worth $410 million shipped from Colombia arrived at the port of Montreal, which the RCMP was aware of. Much to the surprise of the RCMP constables watching the warehouse where the cocaine was hidden, no-one arrived to pick it up. After waiting for a number of days, the RCMP seized the cocaine, but the officers involved were very puzzled by the fact that the West End Gang had not picked up the cocaine despite having ample time to do so. Newly arrived cocaine shipments are normally picked up as quickly as possible to prevent other gangsters from stealing the cocaine or the police from seizing it. In early May 1991, another shipment of cocaine from Colombia worth $340 million arrived at the port of Montreal hidden in aluminum silicate powder that the RCMP was also aware of. Once again, no one arrived at the warehouse to pick up the cocaine as the RCMP officers watching the warehouse waited in vain for someone to arrive. The cocaine was again seized, but it was felt to be very odd that no-one had arrived to pick it over the course of several days. Given the value of the cocaine in both shipments, it was realized that the only reason why no-one arrived to pick up the cocaine was because the West End Gang was aware that the RCMP was watching the warehouses where the cocaine was being stored. Savoie requested that the Internal Affairs department of the RCMP start an investigation to find out who was selling information to the West End Gang and singled out Leite as the officer most likely to be corrupt as he stated Leite seemed very greedy as he always complaining that he was never making enough money. Through Leite was a corrupt officer, it is believed that he was the "fall guy" for Savoie's corruption as Savoie needed someone to blame after it became very apparent by May 1991 that the West End Gang had a "mole" inside the RCMP. On 5 May 1991, an Internal Affairs investigation led by Inspector Yves Roussel began with the aim of finding the "mole".

According to a secret RCMP report from 1993, in May 1991, Savoie revealed the identity of an RCMP informer in the West End Gang to Leithman. On 5 May 1991, Leithman told someone whose name is still redacted on the report that he “controlled a high-ranking member of the RCMP, a regional director who sold information to the West End Gang" and "he had been paid for his services for several years." Leithman does not name the regional director, but he appears to be referring to Savoie.

On 13 May 1991, Leithman was murdered, gunned down in an ambush on a street in Mount Royal. Discovered inside of Leithman's car was a piece of paper with Savoie's unlisted phone number on it. An informer in the Montreal underworld mentioned that Leithman had in his office safe numerous photocopies of C237 forms (the daily reports that Mounties are required to submit to their superiors about the status of their investigations) and had given them to Ross. Another informer mentioned that he heard rumours in the underworld that Leithman had waved about C237 forms in his office as a symbol of his power while he also provided them to Ross. The most redacted section of the 1993 RCMP report is the one relating to Leithman's murder. The report states: "Inspector Savoie’s contacts with Sidney Leithman and Allan Ross in the spring of 1991 finally reveal the complex dynamics that linked the three men before the murder of Sidney Leithman. Those contacts may raise questions regarding Savoie’s possible role in Leithman’s murder on May 13, 1991".

Savoie was shielded for a time when Leite was exposed as corrupt in May 1991 and fled back to his native Portugal. Savoie shifted rumors of a "mole" in the RCMP onto Leite, whom he argued was the one who must been selling information as he maintained that the "unacceptably high failure rate" of drug investigations in Montreal since 1988 was due to Leite. However, there still remained the lingering question of who had tipped off Leite that he was facing arrest. Leite was clearly aware that he was under investigation by Internal Affairs as he claimed to be unable to work due to marital problems starting on 12 May 1991 as he went about methodically preparing his flight from Canada, which occurred on 22 May 1991. On 1 June 1991, Savoie was promoted to be the director of the RCMP's national anti-drug squad in Ottawa. On 7 October 1991, Ross was arrested in Florida. A police search of Ross's Montreal home revealed that the rumors about him having C237 forms were true. As C237 forms are closely guarded secrets and Ross had multiple C237 forms filed from different officers since 1989, it indicated that a senior RCMP officer had been selling them. Leite was just a constable and would not have access to the C237 reports filed by other Mounties. In April 1992, Savoie was transferred over to become the assistant director of the Criminal Intelligence Service.

Downfall