Though Gawker raised the $200,000 necessary to purchase the alleged video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack, the Canadian producer who claims to have the footage tells the gossip website - it is “gone.”

Gawker earlier said if there was no video to purchase, they would donate 100% of the proceeds to a Canadian charity that helps drug addicts, according to the New York Daily News.

“What does that mean?” writes Gawker editor-in-chief John Cook. “We don’t really know.”

Beth Stebner of the Daily News said, it could mean that the chances of the site nailing the hard-core conservative mayor have "gone up in smoke.”

Cook explained that additional reports from the Toronto Star newspaper divulged details about the producer, including the area where the person filmed the alleged video, his ethnic background and personal appearance.

Gawker’s editor and two Toronto Star reporters claims to have seen the video. Cook says that in the footage, the mayor is “red-faced and sweaty” while talking about Canadian politics with a man off-camera.

"He seems to keep trying to light the pipe, but keeps stopping to laugh .… Finally, he finds his moment and lights up. He inhales,” writes Cook.

The “Crackstarter” campaign was launched in May in an effort to raise the money demanded by the video’s owner so Gawker could in turn share the alleged crack smoking with its readers.

Cook told supporters earlier that he lost touch with the intermediary and promised no more updates until the “delicate” transactions had gone through.

The $200,000 goal was reached on May 27, and it’s possible the video’s producer succumbed to intense international scrutiny.

Cook speculates that the video could have been damaged, lost, stolen, seized by Toronto police, or even taken by one of Ford’s few remaining staffers, reports the Daily News.

Mayor Ford has denied the potentially career-ruining footage, saying on his video show last week that no such video exists and reporters writing on the allegations are a “bunch of maggots.”