Toronto business owner charged after sharing neo-Nazi conspiracy flyers

A Toronto business owner has been arrested and charged with wilfully promoting hatred after flyers were made available at his business, which promoted long-debunked and antisemitic conspiracy theories

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A Toronto business owner has been arrested and charged with wilfully promoting hatred after flyers were made available at his business, which promoted long-debunked and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Toronto Police Services announced in a news release on Tuesday that police arrested and charged Oliver Couto, 62, after charges were laid following a police call to the Bloor Street West and Lansdown Avenue area on January 2, where Couto allegedly disseminated flyers promoting hatred against members of the Jewish community.

In a post on X, “Leviathan” shared images of the alleged flyers just days after police were called. The flyers included a list from a famous forgery called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which has been historically used for centuries to vilify the European Jewish diaspora.

The X user also identified Cuoto as the owner of “The Bee Shop” at 1340 Bloor St W, in Toronto.

The forged document purports to outline a plan from the first Zionist meetings in Switzerland, subtitled “The Jew’s plan for world domination.” They contained antisemitic tropes, alleging a collective Jewish conspiracy to take over the media, blackmail influential people, and introduce “filth and perversion” to destabilize societies.

The Times in London debunked the document as a forgery in 1921, and Swiss courts found it fraudulent in 1930. The Nazi Party in Germany used the forgery as propaganda but never provided proof that the document was genuine.

Instagram user “Jaybirdsaid” posted a video on Jan. 3 in which he confronted the owner, who said someone had given him the flyers and that he hadn’t read them. In the video, Couto said he would get to work on making a proper apology. However, the Bee Shop on Bloor’s Instagram page has since been taken down.

Richard Robertson, the director of research and advocacy at B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish advocacy group, told True North that the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been used to sow distrust and hatred against Jewish people for the last two centuries.”

“It’s a complete falsehood. It’s a forgery. It’s misinformation, it’s disinformation, and it’s been a prominent text throughout the history of the 20th and 21st Century, used and weaponized against the Jewish people by antisemites,” Robertson said. “It was popular in Nazi Germany, and it remains popular amongst antisemites to this day.”

The flyers say they are from a group called “GTV flyers,” whose website is run by a known neo-nazi group called the “Goyim Defence League.” Robertson said the group is one of the “most problematic hate groups operating in the U.S.”

“They utilize social media to spread conspiracy theories and to target youth and indoctrinate them, as well as to harass them. That’s one of their favourite pastimes,” he said. “Their leader, Jon Minadeo, likes to go on social media and websites like Omegle and harasses minority and Jewish youth.”

Minadeo was arrested in Poland after protesting in front of the World War 2 concentration camp Auschwitz and was also convicted in Palm Beach County, Florida, for “littering” antisemitic flyers from his vehicle. The content of the literature, however, was not a factor in the sentence.

Robertson said B’nai Brith Canada is grateful to the Ministry of the Attorney General for approving the charges and to the Toronto police for enforcing laws against the proliferation of hate in Canada. This is especially important given the rise in antisemitism and the recent shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia, which killed at least 15 people at a menorah lighting event.

“The spread of content like these flyers in our society only emboldens hatred against the Jewish community by advancing false in damaging narratives,” Robertson said. “There is no space in our society for the spread of disinformation. What occurred at Bondi Beach is an example of the threat of antisemitism and the dangers of allowing antisemitism to become normalized in our society. “

He said Canadians can never allow groups such as the Goyim Defence League to be normalized and urges the federal government to list the group as a terrorist entity.

“We must denounce their rhetoric at all costs and hold those who advance their hateful screed accountable for their actions,” Robertson said.

Couto is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice, 10 Armoury Street, on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, at 2 p.m. in courtroom 201, according to the police news release.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-3500 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477) or www.222tips.com.