Two of three men accused by Alberta police of running a cross-Canadian human trafficking network for over a decade pleaded not guilty in Edmonton Monday.
Last year, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) charged the pair with nearly 20 offences after a year-long investigation dubbed Project Endgame. Some of those charges – at the time – included trafficking in persons, assault, sexual assault, uttering threats, money laundering and animal cruelty.
READ: Alleged leaders of decade-long interprovincial human trafficking operation arrested
On Monday, Kevin Dorcleus-Cetoute, 33, and Jean Rodnil Dubois, 32, were facing just three charges – combined – for human trafficking, for which they pleaded not guilty.
The Crown prosecution is planning to withdraw the other charges if the two men are found guilty.
Authorities have said Project Endgame uncovered a network of sex trafficking in operation for more than 10 years throughout B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec.
According to ALERT’s human trafficking unit, the accused forced the victims to “perform multiple sex acts on multiple clients every day.”
“If the victims question the traffickers or dispute the situation, they were often violently assaulted, degraded, and/or threatened of further loss, violence, and isolation,” ALERT said in a February 2025 news release.
The Project Endgame investigation began in May 2023 after a 911 call allegedly detailed a sex worker being violently assaulted.
On Monday, in an uncommon move for the first day of a criminal trial, lawyers didn’t present arguments or discuss what’s in several binders of evidence. They also didn’t read into the public record the list of facts in the case both sides agree are true, with even the judge unsure if that was allowed.
The judge will look at the evidence by herself.
The parties are set to meet next week for a decision and potential sentencing.
–With files from Lauren Boothby
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