Insp. Simon James of York Regional Police speaks to the media during a news conference regarding the case of the Ontario man accused of selling a deadly substance online, in Mississauga, on Aug. 29.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
Montreal’s police force is the latest agency to launch an investigation into an Ontario man who is accused of shipping a legal but potentially deadly substance to people at risk of self-harm.
Montreal police announced Monday that they have joined agencies across Ontario and abroad in investigating Kenneth Law, a 57-year-old Mississauga resident who already faces more than a dozen charges in Ontario for counselling and aiding suicide.
Mr. Law, who was initially arrested in May by Peel Regional Police, is alleged to have used a series of websites to market and sell sodium nitrite – a substance commonly used to cure meats that can be deadly if ingested – as well as masks and hoods, to people at risk of self-harm.
Investigators have alleged that Mr. Law sent at least 1,200 such packages to people in more than 40 countries. Around 160 of those packages are believed to have been sent to addresses in Canada.
Though Montreal police have said they are specifically looking at kits Mr. Law allegedly shipped to Montreal, they have not said whether they have identified any related deaths.
In an e-mail, spokesperson Mélanie Bergeron said only that the service was alerted by Peel police in May that kits could have been sent to roughly 10 addresses in Montreal, where officers visited to ensure the well-being of the residents.
In their press release on Monday, Montreal police warned that the following companies may be listed on the kits in question: Academic/ACademic; Escape Mode/escMode; Imtime Cuisine; AmbuCA; and ICemac. Anyone with such a kit is advised to call police, and to handle it with caution.
British police announced late last month that they are investigating after identifying 232 people in the country who bought products from Canadian-based websites allegedly linked to Mr. Law. They said 88 of those people died.
Investigations are also under way in the United States as well as in Italy, Australia and New Zealand.
The charges Mr. Law faces so far in Ontario involve residents between the ages of 16 and 36 in the province who died in communities as far north as Thunder Bay and as far southwest as London, police said.
The Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario is assisting the police investigation, and a spokesperson said previously that there have been at least 37 deaths owing to sodium nitrite since 2019. More than 90 per cent of those deaths were deemed suicides.
Health Canada has said it “has been made aware of reports of people intentionally ingesting sodium nitrate or nitrite with the intent of self-harm and is taking action to address this concerning trend.”
Mr. Law was once an engineer but let his accreditation lapse in 2012. He was working as a chef at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto in 2020, according to public records, before declaring bankruptcy that April.
Four months later, he registered a website called ImtimeCuisine.com, its corporate logo highlighting the S and N in cuisine. The website sold sodium nitrite around the world for $59 for a 50-gram package.
Mr. Law previously told The Globe and Mail that he discovered the food preservative through his work in restaurants, and that he launched the business because he needed a source of income during the pandemic.