The Bad Doctor

How a respected family physician, lured by easy money, fell into a fentanyl trafficking ring

- Brett Popplewell

In 2016, three decades after immigrating from Uganda, George Otto had the life he’d always wanted. He lived with his wife and four kids in a leafy, cushy gated community in Richmond Hill, Ont. He’d bought his stone mansion in 2011 for $2.5 million. The house had six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and a double-level five-car garage, where he parked his black Lexus.

Otto, who was 58, had worked hard to build his reputation as a trusted doctor in one of Toronto’s marginalized communities. Many of the patients at his clinic, located in a strip mall near the intersection of Jane and Wilson, were new Canadians, and he spoke Swahili and Luo, which helped him forge personal connections. Otto treated any patient who passed through his doors, whether or not they had provincial health insurance. And he was compensated very well: over one 16-month period, his billings totalled $803,858.

To his patients, Otto was a hard worker who represented the embodiment of prosperity and generosity. He’d been a student activist in Kampala, Uganda. He had to flee to avoid the wrath of the military police, arriving in Canada as a political refugee in 1981. Later, once he’d established himself, he shared his success with others, granting free lodging to new immigrants arriving from Uganda. He shipped textbooks back to his alma mater, Makerere University. And at the Uganda Martyrs United Church of Canada, he and his family were leading benefactors and vital members of the community.