Leng Ky Lech, 52 — Much of the evidence presented at trial indicated Lech, the owner of currency-exchange counter Peng Heng Or Gold Inc., was the deal-maker behind the money laundering scheme in Montreal while her husband, Sy Veng Chun, handled the delivery of dirty drug money to Cambodia. There was also evidence the couple had laundered money for other drug dealers before, but had not been charged. Lech held a key meeting at a restaurant in Old Montreal with Daniel Muir, a prolific drug trafficker, in 2000, where they drew up the plan to launder his millions. Lech and her husband had experience in banking in Cambodia and, in 2001, used Muir’s money to open their own bank, Peng Heng Bank SME, in Phnom Penh. Before they made that deal, Lech and Chun were struggling to achieve their goal. Lech once complained to a friend that some of the couple’s past clients ran out of money because “the dogs bit them.” It was an apparent reference to past clients being arrested by police.

Related

• The drug trafficker, the money launderers and the Tarot card reader

Sy Veng Chun, 67 — The money laundering investigation originated from Chun’s arrest, on Oct. 12, 2002, at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport for carrying $600,000 U.S., which Chun had failed to report to customs officials. Police then found that Chun made several trips to Cambodia between May 2000 and October 2002.

Daniel Muir

Daniel Muir was killed in 2004, at age 41. The murder has never been solved.

On the night of Feb. 3, 2004, two men were seen pursuing Muir, 41, as he ran down de la Montagne St. yelling at people to call the police. The men killed Muir with an axe and a knife, near Ogilvy’s, and then fled. The homicide has never been solved. And at the time of his death Muir was being investigated for money laundering with Lech and Chun and his role in a plan to smuggle up to 800 kilos of cocaine into the U.S. through a deal made with Elias Cobos-Munoz, the head of one of the largest cocaine distribution networks in Colombia at the time.

Bernard Mondou, 49 — On Dec. 11, 2008, Mondou, a Canadian citizen, was moved from a U.S. federal penitentiary to a Canadian one. The transfer was part of a 135-month sentence Mondou received in Florida three years earlier for helping Muir bring 800 kilos of cocaine from Colombia into the United States. He was granted full parole in March 2009 and, one year later, was called as a witness in Chun and Lech’s money laundering trial. He admitted he went to the couple’s offices several times to bring them Muir’s drug money. On one occasion alone, Mondou said, he brought more than $10 million in cash.

Pierre Goulet, 49

Pierre Goulet, a veteran Montreal police officer, arrives in court in Montreal in 2007.

In 2004, while the Montreal police were investigating Muir’s death, they were shocked to learn Goulet, a Montreal police officer, had been part of Muir’s entourage. As the police would eventually learn, Goulet was a childhood friend of Mondou and, between 2000 and 2002, had made several car trips across the U.S. border, bringing with him amounts of cash that varied between $100,000 to $700,000. Goulet would flash his police badge at border crossings in order to avoid inspections and Mondou used the cash to finance his and Muir’s deal with the Colombians. In 2008, Goulet received a 30-month prison sentence, which he served isolated from other inmates. Goulet, a 16-year veteran of the Montreal police when he resigned in 2007, later told the Parole Board of Canada he had become disillusioned with the justice system when he agreed to deliver Mondou’s money.

Suzanne Pépin, 64 – While testifying at the money-laundering trial of Leng Ky Lech and Sy Veng Chun, Pépin described herself as a hairdresser who dabbled in Tarot card reading. She was a close confidante, even a maternal figure, for drug trafficker Daniel Muir, who bought her a car and paid her rent, and sought her opinions about potential business associates. Pépin told the court that she did initially not know Lech and Chun were laundering Muir’s millions, that she had thought they were discussing a loan.

A man whose drug trafficking case received widespread media attention when it was revealed he hung out with members of the Montreal Canadiens is expected to learn Thursday how much more time he will spend behind bars.

Quebec Court Judge Manon Ouimet was recently presented with sentence arguments for Pasquale Mangiola ranging from four-and-a-half to seven years. During a sentence hearing in December, Mangiola’s lawyer, Gaetan Bourassa, asked Ouimet to consider the media coverage the case received after La Presse revealed, in 2009, that police learned during their investigation that Mangiola hung out frequently with brothers Sergei and Andrei Kostitsyn, who were at the time considered young and promising players with the Montreal Canadiens.

Following a lengthy trial at the Montreal courthouse that began on Nov. 25, 2013, Ouimet found Mangiola guilty of three counts of drug trafficking, one count of weapons trafficking and two related conspiracy charges. He has been detained since Ouimet made her decision on March 18, 2014.

Bourassa suggested that “everyone in Quebec” knew about the case brought against Mangiola because of his ties to the hockey players. But at least one person in the province was unaware.

“Who are the Kostitsyns?” Ouimet asked at one point while Bourassa began making his point last month.

Her innocent question caused other lawyers in the courtroom to break out into laughter.

“I followed the Canadiens when (Claude) Ruel was the coach (from 1968 to 1971). That gives you an idea (of my knowledge of the Canadiens),” Ouimet continued.

Ouimet’s reaction during the sentence hearing was confirmation the Kostitsyn brothers’ names were never mentioned while the judge heard evidence in the trial against Mangiola and two of his associates, Roberto Sauro, 36, who will also be sentenced Thursday, and Curtis Rodney, 41, a West Island resident who has already been sentenced.

According to what La Presse reported on Feb. 20, 2009, Mangiola took the Kostitsyns, natives of Belarus, “under his wing” after they arrived in Montreal. During the sentence hearing in December, Bourassa said the brothers “were interrogated” by police but were never charged with any wrongdoing. La Presse cited unnamed police sources who said Mangiola dined often with the Kostitsyns in expensive restaurants in Montreal. He was also described as a willing gofer whenever the brothers phoned him to request “bottles of vodka, luxury cars, women, etc.” The story was followed by several media outlets, including The Gazette.

In June 2010, during a break in the preliminary inquiry of his case, Mangiola declined to discuss his friendship with the Kostitsyns. But, in a sign of how passionate he is about hockey, his face lit up when a reporter noticed reports over social media that Jaroslav Halak, then a goaltender with the Habs, had been traded to the St. Louis Blues. Mangiola even debated the pros and cons of the trade, in the courtroom corridor, with police investigators who worked on his case.

“He ended up in the newspapers more than a normal person because he knew the Kostitsyn brothers,” Bourassa said back in December.

He asked that Ouimet consider the media attention Mangiola received as a factor in his sentence.

Sergei Kostitsyn, now 27, played 155 games over three seasons with the Canadiens before being traded to the Nashville Predators near the end of June 2010. His older brother Andrei, 29, a former first round draft pick by the Habs, played 379 games for the team before being traded during the 2011-2012 season. The brothers are currently playing hockey for teams in Russia’s professional league.

Mangiola’s ties to the brothers came to light to police while he was under surveillance and his phone calls were being secretly recorded as part of Project Axe, a Montreal police investigation into a drug trafficking network controlled by Emmanuel Zéphir, 42, a notoriously violent street gang leader. The focus of Project Axe was centred on Zéphir and members of the Syndicate, a street gang tied to the Hells Angels. Mangiola entered the picture when he agreed to sell a kilogram of cocaine to Zéphir. Mangiola’s cocaine was stored at a building owned by Sauro and Rodney helped deliver it. The investigation also revealed Mangiola sold a firearm to a Russian businessman living in retirement in Montreal. Also, a search warrant executed near the end of Project Axe revealed Mangiola, Sauro and Rodney were involved in other forms of drug trafficking.

Mangiola helped the police who were secretly following him by driving a flashy silver Porsche 911 as he moved from one location to another during the investigation, including frequent trips to the Cours Mont Royal downtown shopping centre and a café in St-Léonard.

While making the Crown arguments during an earlier hearing in November, prosecutor Genevieve Gravel included a detailed list of what was found inside Sauro’s residence. It included $10,500 in cash, three kilos of hashish, two kilos of marijuana and evidence Mangiola, Sauro and Rodney handled as much as 17 other kilos of cocaine besides the one sold to Zéphir.

“We don’t become someone who can deliver a kilo of cocaine overnight,” Gravel said. “You can deduce that these were not people who were at their criminal baptism.”

Gravel asked that Mangiola be sentenced to an overall sentence of seven years, based on a calculation that would see Mangiola serve his firearm and drug trafficking sentences consecutively. Bourassa argued an overall sentence between 54 and 60 months would be more appropriate.

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Those charged, along with Pasquale Mangiola, in Project Axe include:

Emmanuel Zéphir, 42. Pasquale Mangiola drew the attention of police when Zéphir, considered a leader among Montreal street gangs for nearly two decades, agreed to buy a kilogram of cocaine from him. Project Axe was centred on Zéphir and many members of the Syndicate, a street gang Zéphir took control of early in 2006, when he left a federal penitentiary after having serving an eight-year prison term for having killed a rival gang member who stabbed him first, in 1999, during a party in Montreal. In December 2010, Zéphir pleaded guilty to several charges related to Project Axe — notably drug trafficking, conspiracy to traffic drugs and gangsterism. He was sentenced to an overall seven-and-a-half-year prison term. He was left with 34 months to serve when his case came to an end.

Roberto Sauro, 36, Montreal. On March 18, 2014, Judge Manon Ouimet found Sauro guilty of three counts of drug possession with intent to traffic, possession of a prohibited firearm and conspiring to traffic in drugs with Mangiola. Prosecutor Genevieve Gravel has asked that Sauro be sentenced to a prison term of up to eight years, arguing the sentence related to the firearm should be consecutive to any sentence he receives for drug trafficking. His lawyer, Debora De Thomasis, recommended a sentence between three and five years.

Curtis Rodney, 41, Pointe Claire. A longtime friend of Mangiola’s who delivered the kilogram of cocaine Mangiola sold to Zéphir. He was also convicted of possessing 600 Cialis pills, designed to treat erectile dysfunction, with intent to traffic. He is currently serving a sentence of 40 months, which he received in November.

Nelio Timothée, 39, Montreal. Timothée worked under Zéphir and was followed by police after Rodney delivered cocaine to an apartment on Jarry St. Timothée stuffed the cocaine into a Maxi shopping bag and boarded a city bus, delivering the drugs to another location while being secretly followed by an undercover police officer. In 2011, Timothée was sentenced to 50 -months in jail after admitting he was involved in Mangiola’s drug deal, but the prison term factored in other crimes uncovered during Project Axe.

Igor Vassiliev, 66, Montreal. Vassiliev is a native of Russia who was living in retirement in Montreal when he was investigated in Project Axe. He was the first person indicted with Mangiola to plead guilty to charges filed against him: drug possession and illegal possession of a firearm. He was sentenced, on Jan. 27, 2010, to a three-year prison term. He had no criminal record in Canada when he was arrested. When he appeared before the Parole Board of Canada in July 2010, Vassiliev said he was living off his life savings after having sold a business in Russia, which required several trips to his home country. When the parole board asked for more details on his financial resources, Vassiliev refused to provide any, but said he was willing to turn over any documents if parole officers requested them. He was also evasive about why he felt he needed the firearm he purchased from Mangiola.

Jean-François Bastien, 49, Orford. Bastien was charged in connection with a different part of Project Axe in which police investigated Mangiola for allegedly conspiring to traffic in large quantities of marijuana. Mangiola has yet to be tried on charges filed in that case. Last March, Bastien was sentenced to a 12-month prison term after he pleaded guilty to being in possession of 243 pounds of marijuana and 900 grams of hashish. When the police searched Bastien’s home in 2009, they also found $137,000 in cash. He recently told the provincial parole board, the Commission québécoise des liberations conditionnelles, that he agreed to let his home be used as a stash house for the drugs and cash because he owed $60,000 to a loan shark who had threatened his life.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

A Quebec Court judge refused to let the publicity surrounding the case of Pasquale Mangiola, a drug dealer who hung out with members of the Montreal Canadiens while he was targeted in a major police investigation, be a factor in his sentence on Thursday.

Judge Manon Ouimet sentenced Mangiola, 44, to a 6½-year sentence for trafficking in cocaine and for selling a prohibited or restricted firearm. The crimes were uncovered while he was investigated in Project Axe, a probe that was focused mainly on Emmanuel Zéphir, 42, a street gang leader, and members of the Syndicate, a Montreal street gang. Mangiola, who was not part of the street gang, entered the sphere of Project Axe while the probe was in its later stages. While he was investigated, the police learned that Mangiola hung out frequently with brothers Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn, who were playing for the Canadiens at the time.

Mangiola received an overall sentence that was just one year less than Zéphir’s. But Ouimet noted the circumstances were different in each case. Notably, Zéphir was not convicted in trafficking in a firearm.

In December, Mangiola’s lawyer, Gaetan Bourassa, had asked Ouimet to consider the publicity the case received after his client’s arrest as a mitigating factor. While reading her decision at the Montreal courthouse Thursday afternoon, Ouimet rejected that argument. While not mentioning the hockey players by name, she said Mangiola likely enjoyed being in the presence of celebrities before he was arrested and that the Kostitsyns’s reputations were likely tarnished in a way that did more damage than any publicity drawn to Mangiola’s case.

“(Mangiola’s) name should not pass along in recorded history,” Ouimet said.

The judge noted that a telephone conversation recorded during Project Axe revealed that Mangiola knew, months before his arrest, that a large amount of drugs he controlled and the firearm he sold had been seized by police. Despite this, he continued to sell 600 erectile dysfunction pills.

Outside the courtroom, Bourassa said he has filed an appeal of Ouimet’s decision last March to convict his client and will appeal the sentence as well.

“I think the judge put (Mangiola) at the same level as Zéphir,” Bourassa said when asked to compare the sentences.

With the time Mangiola has already served is factored into the sentence, he is left with a prison term of 57 months.

Robero Sauro, 36, a man who was revealed to have been involved in drug trafficking along with Mangiola during Project Axe, received the same overall sentence on Thursday. The police found a large stash of various drugs, as well as a firearm, at Sauro’s apartment when it was searched.

Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

Fifteen people were arrested, including a few who are already behind bars, as part of an RCMP-led investigation into a cocaine trafficking ring with alleged ties to the Mafia in Montreal. According to a statement issued by the RCMP on Wednesday, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigated a “well-structured network (that) was to control drug trafficking in the greater Montreal area as well as the Atlantic Provinces.” “One of the cocaine seizures made in the course of the investigation revealed the network used an unusual method to smuggle drugs into the country by mixing cocaine with asphalt powder.”

More than 36 cats and 57 dogs have been seized from a breeder on the South Shore, according to the Montreal SPCA. The animals are alleged to have been housed in substandard conditions and were being raised to be sold through pet stores. The animals will receive veterinary care through the SPCA. Seizures like this show that puppy and kitten mills are still a problem in Quebec, said Alanna Devine, the director of animal welfare at the SPCA. She said steps must be taken to regulate the commercial breeding industry in the province.

Montreal mayor Denis Coderre met with Pope Francis at the Vatican Wednesday to invite him to attend the city’s 375th anniversary celebrations in 2017. Coderre said he stressed Montreal’s Catholic heritage in their meeting and how it is still resonates in the city’s institutions and architecture as illustrated by such symbols as the cross on Mount Royal. Coderre also suggested the pope include Quebec City, if he decides to visit.

Rescuers used a crane to hoist a wrecked TransAsia Airways plane from a shallow river in Taiwan’s capital late Wednesday as they searched into the night for 18 people missing in a crash that killed at least 25 others. Flight GE235 with 58 people aboard — most of them travellers from China — banked sharply on its side shortly after takeoff from Taipei, clipped a highway bridge and then careened into the Keelung River. Rescuers in rubber rafts pulled 15 people out alive from the wreckage during daylight. After dark, they brought in the crane, and the death toll was expected to rise once crews were able to search through previously submerged portions of the fuselage, which came to rest a few dozen metres from the shore.

And finally, the city of Montreal says it will contribute an additional $2 million to host the 2017 World Police & Fire Games because a smaller-than-expected contribution from the federal government has left the event’s organizing committee in the lurch. The city, which has already put up about $2.2 million in cash contributions and financing for equipment, is also blaming a labour conflict with its firefighters for the extra $2-million injection. The firefighters have withdrawn personnel who were helping to organize the games as their union and the city’s other unions battle the Quebec government’s pension-plan law in court on constitutional grounds. The legislation, known as Law 15, was instigated by Mayor Denis Coderre and Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume.

Stay with us for more on these stories and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com

Fifteen people were arrested Wednesday, including a few who were already behind bars, as part of an RCMP-led investigation into a Mob-tied cocaine-trafficking ring that used an unusual — and some might say streetwise — technique to sneak their product into Canada.

While cocaine is often smuggled into Canada creatively hidden among products buried deep in shipping containers, some of the people arrested Wednesday are alleged to have smuggled the narcotic in by mixing it with asphalt powder. A release issued by the RCMP describes the method as unusual and alleges that one of the accused sought Wednesday is “the chemist of the group (who) was responsible for extracting the cocaine from the legitimate substance.”

A total of 36 charges, contained in two indictments, were filed at the Montreal courthouse after members of the RCMP-led Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit made the arrests. At least a few of the people sought were very easy to find. Steven Fracas, 30, is currently detained while charged, along with seven other men, in the murder of Salvatore Montagna, a Mafia leader who was gunned down near Montreal in November 2011. Stéphane Parent, 47, is incarcerated in a federal penitentiary serving a five-year prison term after pleading guilty to a series of charges, in 2012, in connection with a drug and contraband tobacco ring tied to the Hells Angels in the Quebec City region. He is scheduled to have his first parole hearing next week.

The third man already behind bars, Artur Klodkowski, 38, is detained while awaiting a possible trial in a different drug-trafficking case at the Montreal courthouse brought against him and six other people last year.

The indictments detail alleged drug-trafficking conspiracies that stretched throughout Eastern Canada from Ontario to Nova Scotia. In its statement, the RCMP alleged the network “was to control drug trafficking in the greater Montreal area as well as the Atlantic provinces.” The Mounties also noted in the statement that the drug-trafficking cell busted on Wednesday was linked to arrests made in June in Project Clemenza. Just like in Clemenza, the alleged drug-trafficking conspiracies involve a time frame limited between 2010 and 2011. That is because the Mounties had to put both probes on hold while investigators with the RCMP’s C Division based in Montreal had to turn their attention toward another investigation.

Five of the people arrested on Wednesday were previously charged in June in Project Clemenza, including Antonio Bastone, 52, of St-Jean-de-Matha, and his younger brother Roberto, 42, of Laval, the alleged leaders of one of two cells broken up last year. The brothers were released on bail in July after posting $5-million bonds on real estate.

Giuseppe Arcoraci, 49, a man listed in business records as the president of a restaurant in LaSalle, was also among the people arrested on Wednesday. He faces three charges in all, including one alleging he was part of a conspiracy, between October 2010 and September 2011, to traffic in cocaine and marijuana. The alleged plot involved a dozen of the people arrested Wednesday as well Giuseppe (Closure) Colapelle, a 38-year-old man tied to the Mafia who was murdered in St-Léonard in March 2012.

Most of the people arrested appeared before a judge at the Montreal courthouse, via a video conference, on Wednesday and their cases are scheduled to return to court on April 20. The RCMP also issued a notice that they are seeking to arrest two more men as part of the most recent investigation. Mathieu Bouchard, 37, and Mike Di Battista, 39, are being sought.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Mathieu Bouchard, left, and Mike Di Battista were sought by the RCMP in February 2015.

The Parole Board of Canada has rejected a request from a Hells Angel who wanted to leave the halfway house where he is residing because it doubts his claim of having quit the world’s most notorious outlaw motorcycle gang.

Mario Brouillette, 42, a man who joined the Hells Angels in 1994, just as the gang initiated a bloody war with rival criminal organizations all over Quebec that dragged on for seven years, was informed of the board’s decision on Thursday. During a hearing on Wednesday, he claimed he has left the gang because he doesn’t want his son to become a third-generation Hells Angel. Brouillette’s father, Aurele, 63, is a Hells Angel as well and is also serving a lengthy prison term.

The younger Brouillette is someone the police will probably be keeping a close eye on after he completes the eight-year sentence he is serving for drug trafficking and taking part in a general conspiracy to murder rivals during the conflict the Hells Angels engaged in. Before he was arrested in 2006, in a drug trafficking case, some police sources speculated Mario Brouillette was one of the gang’s more influential leaders in Quebec.

As his sentence nears its end, the gang is slowly re-establishing its chapters after almost all of its members were arrested in 2009’s Operation SharQc. But during his parole hearing on Wednesday, Brouillette claimed he quit the gang a couple of years ago and has found a new social network by attending his son’s hockey games and hanging out with other hockey parents.

In 2013, he reached the statutory release date, the two-thirds mark of his sentence, but the parole board ordered that he reside at a halfway house until it expires. On Wednesday he asked that the condition be lifted because he felt it was unnecessary. The members of his case management team, the people who prepare inmates for a release, informed the board they believe Brouillette is sincere.

The parole board disagreed. In a written summary of its decision, the two commissioners who heard the case felt “we have not seen a change of your values in the identified risk factors (of reoffending). Prudence remains appropriate.” The board noted that as recently as December, Brouillette continued to receive Christmas cards from Hells Angels chapters all over the world. The board also has concerns over how Brouillette will make a living while he owes the government $500,000 in taxes on undeclared revenue.

According to previous parole decisions, Brouillette was involved in drug trafficking from age 16. In 1990, at age 18, he became a founding member of the Rowdy Crew, an underling gang based in Lavaltrie that worked for the Hells Angels’ Trois-Rivières chapter. Four years later, he became the youngest Hells Angel in Quebec after he was promoted into the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle gang and joined his father in the Trois-Rivières chapter.

Brouillette timeline

May 12, 2006 — Mario Brouillette is arrested, along with 28 other people, in Project Bromure, a two-year investigation into several drug trafficking conspiracies in the Montreal area. Police sources said at the time that even though Brouillette was a full-patch member of a Hells Angels chapter based in Trois-Rivières, he appeared to be filling the void left in Montreal after the gang’s Nomads chapter, led by Maurice (Mom) Boucher, was shut down by Operation Printemps 2001.

May 21, 2008 — After having reportedly acted as a bodyguard for octogenarian Mafia boss Nicolo (Zio Cola) Rizzuto while both were detained at the Montreal Detention Centre, Brouillette pleads guilty to being part of a drug trafficking conspiracy, drug trafficking and a gangsterism charge. He is sentenced to nine years but with time served factored in he was left with a 67-month prison term. During Project Bromure, police learned Brouillette was supplying cocaine to dealers in downtown Montreal, Sherbrooke and as far away as Thunder Bay, Ont.

April 16, 2009 — Brouillette is re-arrested, while inside a federal penitentiary, as part of Operation SharQc, the police investigation that led to murder and conspiracy charges being filed against almost every member of the Hells Angels in Quebec. The case brought against more than a hundred gang members alleged they took part in a general conspiracy to murder rival gang members while the Hells Angels were involved in conflicts with rival organizations, mostly during the 1990s.

Sept. 30, 2011 — With the statutory release date on his 67-month prison term approaching, the Parole Board of Canada decides to impose several conditions on Brouillette’s release. That includes an order that he reside at a halfway house for the remainder of the sentence. During the hearing, the parole board was informed that, a few months earlier, an investigation had been launched after guards at a penitentiary were told that Brouillette and a group of other “influential” inmates had taken part in a conference call where they allegedly discussed putting out a contract on a fellow inmate. The written summary of that decision notes that nothing came as a result of the investigation.

April 5, 2013 — Brouillette pleads guilty to taking part in the general conspiracy to murder rival gang members after the Crown requests a stay of proceedings on the 22 first-degree murder charges that were part of the same case. As part of the plea bargain, Brouillette was able to have time he had previously served, for crimes committed during the conflict, count against his overall sentence. His existing 67-month sentence was recalculated to a 96-month sentence, but he reached his statutory release date only months later.

July 4, 2013 — Despite a formal complaint from Brouillette’s lawyer, the Parole Board of Canada again ordered that he be required to serve the rest of his sentence at a halfway house. Brouillette claimed he was leaving the Hells Angels to reconnect with his son and to look after his elderly mother.

Feb. 19, 2015 — Despite hearing Brouillette claim that he has since quit the Hells Angels, the parole board rejects another request to he no longer be required to reside at a halfway house.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

A man with alleged ties to the West End Gang and to a U.S. woman who was killed last year while she was living as a fugitive in Montreal faces more than a dozen charges related to drugs and firearms.

Jeffrey Colegrove, 48, a resident of St-Lazare, was also being sought by the RCMP when he was arrested by Montreal police this week. He is technically still serving a 10-year sentence he received in 1997 for his role in a major cocaine trafficking ring that operated in Montreal. Court records reveal Colegrove was illegally at large a few times while serving the sentence.

At the time of his arrest on Tuesday he was being sought by the RCMP’s Project Condor, which specializes in locating offenders who have escaped from penitentiaries or have violated their parole by failing to report to halfway houses or to their parole officers.

According to La Presse, Colegrove was closely linked to Elizabeth Barrer, a U.S. woman who was found dead on March 19, 2014, in Lachine, and that they often hung out together at a bar on St-Jacques St. W. Barrer was living as a fugitive in Montreal and had been sought for the seven previous years in Virginia, where she was charged with money laundering for a drug trafficking network that operated in Canada and the U.S.

She had been shot in the head and left in a car found parked on Pacific Ave. in Lachine. No one has been charged in connection with the homicide. Colegrove was behind bars in a federal penitentiary when her body was found.

He was scheduled to have a bail hearing Thursday at the Montreal courthouse, but it was put off to a later date. On Wednesday, he made his first court appearance on four charges of possession of drugs like marijuana and cocaine with intent to traffic, and nine charges related to at least two firearms that were seized by police when he was arrested.

Two other people, Juana Esperanza Alvarado, 67, and Powell Reymond Alvarado Martinez, 38, both of LaSalle, have been charged with possession of drugs with intent to traffic in the same case.

Colegrove’s 10-year sentence involved a long series of convictions he had gathered since 1997. Besides being found guilty of producing marijuana and opium and drug smuggling, he was also serving time for impaired driving and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

According to a written summary of the most recent decision taken by the Parole Board of Canada concerning Colegrove’s 10-year sentence, he escaped from a minimum-security penitentiary in March 2003 and wasn’t located again until June 2009.

The summary notes that Colegrove is also a U.S. citizen and that there are charges pending against him in that country. But during his last hearing, on March 26 last year, he denied that he is charged with anything in the U.S.

Two years after being returned to a penitentiary in 2009, Colegrove reached his statutory release date and was released. But he became a problem for Correctional Service Canada when he missed several curfew calls.

He was supposed to meet with a parole officer in May 2012, but failed to show up. He contacted the parole officer the following day and said he “had no intention of turning myself in to the authorities any time soon.”

After disappearing for nearly two years, he was arrested in a bar in downtown Montreal on Jan. 25, 2014, and appeared to be very drunk.

When Colegrove refused to tell his parole officers where he had been for two years, his statutory release was revoked. But because he was only weeks away from reaching his next statutory release date, the parole board was limited to imposing another set of conditions, including another curfew and that he not associate with anyone tied to organized crime.

According to the RCMP’s Project Condor website, Colegrove was considered illegally at large after Oct. 2.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Montreal police say they rounded up seven suspects and dismantled a drug ring linked to organized crime in Pointe-Claire on Wednesday night.

The operation, which began around 6 p.m., took hours to complete as police raided several locations both on and off the island, including a ‘bunker’ allegedly used by the gang at 66 Donegani Ave. The business at that address is reportedly a gym that opened only recently.

Montreal police spokesperson Anie Lemieux said she was “still waiting for the final tallies” from the operation as of late Thursday morning.

“What I can tell you is that it was an operation linked to drugs and organized crime,” she said, adding six of the suspects were expected in court on Thursday.

The Pointe-Claire raid involved members of the police tactical unit, and occurred only a few kilometres from where police were responding to yet another robbery at the Birks jewelry store at the Fairview Mall.

The two incidents were not related.

One more chapter of the “never ending” story at the Montreal courthouse came to a close Tuesday with a Quebec Court judge handing out lengthy prison sentences and stiff fines to a couple who laundered tens of millions of dollars in drug money through companies they operated in Chinatown.

Judge Patrick Healy sentenced St-Laurent borough residents Sy Veng Chun, 67, and his wife Leng Ky Lech, 52, to eight-year prison terms for laundering the drug money generated by Daniel Muir, a prolific cocaine smuggler who was murdered in downtown Montreal in 2004.

The judge also sentenced the couple to serve another five years consecutive to the eight-year prison term if they are unable to pay a $2.4 million fine, each, by March 2017. In total, the couple and two companies they operated were fined more than $9 million on Tuesday.

“The gravity of all the offences, objective and subjective, is self-evident. In this case, the offences were committed on an immense scale, with both premeditation and deliberation, over a period of four years,” Healy wrote in his 19-page decision. “The precise amounts are not known but the evidence suggests a total of more than $100 million (in drug money was laundered). There was nothing spontaneous, reckless or inadvertent about these offences. Taken together, they demonstrate a systematic and complex campaign of dishonesty fuelled by greed and an appetite for illicit gain. The sustained execution of the agreement with Daniel Muir not only assisted him in laundering the money he obtained through drug trafficking but provided the offenders with a means of self-enrichment by deceit and ill-gotten gains. The offenders’ crimes were parasites thriving on the crimes of others.”

“Tough day,” said defence lawyer Raphael Schachter when asked for his reaction to the sentences.

The only good news Schachter and Dominique St. Laurent, the other defence lawyer in the case, had for the couple was that earlier on Tuesday the Quebec Court of Appeal decided to hear their challenge of some of the 13 charges they were each convicted of last year in a case that began in 2004.

Besides the fines ordered on Tuesday, the government has confiscated two pieces of real estate — a home in St-Laurent and a mansion in St-Hilaire — that Lech had purchased as a means to launder some of Muir’s money. The government also confiscated $600,000 in cash that was seized in 2002, when Chun was preparing to board a flight to Cambodia.

Chun is believed to have transported millions in cash illegally while taking many flights, between 2000 and 2004, to his home country where the couple had set up their own bank to launder Muir’s money. The seizure, made at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, initiated the lengthy investigation that saw the couple charged in 2004.

Shares in the bank, worth $5 million, were also confiscated as was more than $1 million in jewelry, said Marie-Michèle Meloche who prosecuted the case along with Fabienne Simon.

The Crown had asked that the Lech and Chun be sentenced to a 10-year prison term for laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking while the defence argued three-year prison terms were more appropriate.

Meloche said the prison terms and fines likely do not represent record lengths and amounts in terms of sentences and fines meted out in money laundering cases, but they come close.

“We call it the never ending file but it’s a complicated and complex file and this is the reason why (it has gone on so long),” Meloche told reporters after Healy delivered the sentences. “There are also several requests in progress concerning the confiscations being made. So for us the case it not over.”

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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• The drug trafficker, the money launderers and the Tarot card reader

Numbers involved in the sentence of money-laundering couple Sy Veng Chun and Leng Ky Lech:

$100 million — The amount of money generated from drug trafficking, at least, that the couple were estimated to have laundered for Daniel Muir, a narcotics smuggler who was murdered a decade ago. Another estimate made by Judge Patrick Healy last year put the figure at $125 million.

8 years — The prison term Chun and Lech received for being convicted of laundering the proceeds of drug trafficking.

5 years — A prison term that could be served consecutively to the eight-year prison term if they cannot pay a fine of more than $2.4 million, each, before March 18, 2017.

$603,422 — Amount Chun and Lech were ordered to pay for violating a section of Canada’s Income Tax Act.

$9.7 million — The total amount of fines the couple and two of their companies — A & A services monétaires inc. and Peng Heng Or/Gold Inc. were ordered to pay before March 18, 2017.

Between $5 million and $10 million — Value of the confiscations made in the case, including a mansion in St-Hilaire and more than $1 million worth of jewelry.

Montreal police have successfully dismantled a drug-trafficking network linked to outlaw bikers in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve area, they say.

Police arrested 22 people after conducting a dozen raids on homes and six searches of vehicles.

Seventeen of the arrested appeared via video conference Wednesday to face a litany of charges, including drug trafficking, drug possession and conspiracy.

A preliminary assessment reported the seizure of more than 4,000 pieces of crack, $14,000 in cash and a prohibited weapon.

A dozen more arrests are forthcoming, say police.

Montreal police arrested nine people Wednesday night who allegedly took part in a drug-trafficking operation.

One of the arrested is Jean-Philippe Celestin, who police allege is the mastermind of a group with ties to street gangs.

All nine arrested men appeared at the Court of Quebec on Thursday:  Celestin, 34; Glenold Billy Fleury, 25;  William Routhier Ouellet, 29;  Mussa Ali Gulud, 43;  Jean-François Lapointe, 31;  Josue Ivan Flores Bojorquez, 26;  René Ouellet, 53;  Juan Carlos Suarez, 25; Brayan Pena Christian Suarez, 25.

They face various charges related to drugs, charges of conspiracy and receiving stolen money.

Two of the men, Celestin and Lapointe, also face an additional charge of gangsterism.

The investigation, which began in 2014, was directed at a narcotic distribution network for heroin and cocaine, primarily in licensed establishments on St-Laurent Blvd. in the Plateau-Mont-Royal.

Police also seized small quantities of heroin, marijuana and cocaine, $1,300 and a cell phone.

The investigation is not finished and more arrests will follow, police said.

The son of former Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher was released from prison by mistake on Monday, Quebec authorities said.

Francis Boucher.

Francis Boucher was serving a 117-day sentence for having uttered death threats against police officers. The sentence was to finish at the end of May.

Boucher, 39, walked out of Montreal’s Bordeaux prison at about 11 a.m.

Quebec Public Security Minister Lise Theriault called the incident “inexcusable.”

“Our priority now is to find this individual as quickly as possible,” Theriault said in a statement.

“Rest assured we are doing everything we can.”

Boucher, a former member of the Rockers, a Hells affiliate, was previously sentenced to 10 years for gangsterism, conspiracy to commit murder and drug-trafficking.

Related

• Hells Angels emerged stronger from Lennoxville Purge

A former hit man who carried out a murder some would later point to as the first in a bloody conflict that would drag on for years, and came to be known as the biker gang war, is one step closer to freedom.

Early in the morning of Oct. 19, 1994, Patrick Call hid while he waited outside the home in Repentigny where his former friend Maurice Lavoie lived. When Lavoie, 32, arrived in his car, with his 22-year-old girlfriend in the passenger seat, Call fired several shots from a pistol into the vehicle before fleeing the scene. Lavoie, who had been struck in the head, died immediately. His girlfriend, injured by three bullets, managed to exit the car and sought help at a neighbour’s home.

While no one could have foreseen it at the time, Lavoie’s murder would later be considered by some in the drug trafficking milieu as the first in a conflict between the Hells Angels and a group of criminal organizations who called themselves the Alliance. The conflict came to be commonly referred to as Quebec’s biker gang war. It continued for seven years and more than 160 people, including several innocent victims, were killed.

Lavoie’s girlfriend recognized Call because he had hung out with Lavoie the previous summer. Call, already suspected of being an enthusiastic hit man for the Pelletier Clan, one of the groups in the Alliance, was arrested within hours and police found ammunition inside his home that matched shell casings recovered near Lavoie’s car. Nine days later, Sylvain Pelletier, 32, the leader of the Pelletier Clan, was killed after a bomb planted underneath his Jeep Cherokee went off outside his home, also in Repentigny.

At the time, the Hells Angels, led by Maurice (Mom) Boucher, were taking over drug trafficking turf and were especially aggressive in eastern Montreal, where the Pelletier Clan operated. What would later become clear to police was that in 1994, the Hells Angels had begun warning drug dealers that if they didn’t start buying drugs from them they would be considered enemies. According to a few men who later became informants, Lavoie turned his back on the Pelletier Clan and started buying drugs from the Hells Angels. When Lavoie was murdered, the informants told police, the Hells Angels responded by arranging to have Pelletier killed, sending a clear message to the Alliance — which included the Rock Machine — that the war was on.

“Anyway, it seemed to me that the war was inevitable. The Rock Machine and the Alliance would have had to join the Hells Angels (to avoid a war),” one informant, who was formerly part of the Hells Angels, told police in a recorded statement years after Lavoie’s death .

Call was first convicted of first-degree murder, on May 24, 1996, and automatically received a life sentence with his parole eligibility set at 25 years. He appealed the conviction, underwent a second trial and was convicted, on Feb. 15, 2001, of second degree murder, which also carries an automatic life sentence. The difference was that his parole eligibility date was reduced by nine years, making him eligible for a full release in 2010 instead of 2019.

Call recently appeared before the Parole Board of Canada and was granted unescorted leave privileges that will allow him to visit a relative once a month for 24 hours. If all goes well, the leave privileges will be increased to 48 hours, and possibly 72 hours. Despite being eligible for a full release five years ago Call, now 49, apparently knew he had little chance at parole until he could prove he had undergone a significant change. Unescorted leave privileges are considered the step before day parole for inmates serving life sentences.

When he started serving his sentence, a police intelligence report described Call as “a hit man for the Pelletier Clan” and “a bloodthirsty individual who took pleasure in killing.” Also, according to a written summary of the parole board’s recent decision, Call was a serious problem for authorities during the first seven years of his sentence. He was involved in drug trafficking and loansharking behind bars and was suspected of taking part in a plot to break out of a penitentiary. But in 2003, following a transfer to a maximum-security penitentiary, his attitude changed after taking part in a rehabilitation program to control anger and other emotions. In 2005, he fell into a depression after reading a newspaper article about Lavoie’s death that made him reflect on the consequences of his actions. He began consulting a psychologist, completed high school and earned a professional diploma after taking courses in welding. In 2011, he was transferred to a minimum-security penitentiary and, last year, he was granted permission to escorted leaves where he was able to work in his trade.

During his hearing before the parole board, Call acknowledged that he was tied to the Pelletier Clan and was involved in drug trafficking, but he denied being a hit man for the group. He told the board he acted on his own in killing Lavoie and that it involved a situation where “it was him or me.” He also said he did not see Lavoie’s girlfriend inside the car when he started shooting.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, who missed his chance at glory at the two previous Winter Games because he was jailed in a U.S. drug case, is accused in a Montreal cocaine smuggling case that stretched across the country.

Indictments filed in Montreal court on Monday allege Ryan Wedding, 33, a former resident of Coquitlam, B.C., residing in Montreal, was involved in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy investigated by the RCMP in Dartmouth, N.S.

Two indictments naming Wedding were made public on Monday after a co-accused appeared at the Montreal courthouse. Wedding was not scheduled to appear Monday and the RCMP in Nova Scotia are expected to release information on the investigation on Tuesday.

Wedding placed 24th in snowboarding while representing Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He was a hopeful for the 2010 Olympics before he was arrested in a cocaine trafficking case in California, where he was charged in a conspiracy to distribute 24 kilos of the narcotic. In 2010, he was sentenced to a four-year prison term for his role in that plot. The sentence prevented Wedding from trying out for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

While the indictments do not list the amounts of cocaine Wedding and four other people are suspected of plotting to smuggle, the investigation appears to have been a significant one. One charge Wedding faces, along with Montreal resident Philipos Kollaros, 35, alleges a conspiracy that stretched from Montreal to Vancouver and included Toronto. Another indictment alleges a plot that stretched from Halifax to Toronto and included Montreal.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Fifteen people, including six from Montreal, face charges in connection with an RCMP investigation into several drug smuggling conspiracies that allegedly involved employees of the Canadian Coast Guard and the Department of National Defence.

The RCMP released details of Operation Harrington during a news conference held in Dartmouth, N.S., on Tuesday. The investigation began two years ago when investigators received a tip that someone in Canada was preparing to smuggle cocaine from South America to Nova Scotia. As the investigation progressed, investigators learned that several people tied to Mexican and Colombian drug cartels were looking to bring cocaine into Canada. While 200 kilograms of cocaine was seized, the RCMP said Tuesday that it “had control” of what the drug smugglers thought was going to arrive in Nova Scotia.

“In this particular case, we had control of how some of these conspiracies unfolded,” said RCMP Inspector Glen Lambe without revealing much more.

Among those arrested was a Royal Canadian Air Force employee who had security clearance and access to restricted areas at 14 Wing Greenwood, the largest airbase on the East Coast. Darlene Richards, 54, was the administrative assistant to the commanding officer of 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron. She is a civilian employee of the Department of National Defence.

Richards, a resident of Greenwood, N.S., is named in an indictment filed at the Montreal courthouse alleging she and four other people took part in a conspiracy to import cocaine into Canada. The alleged conspiracy ran from April 26, 2014 to April 2015.

She has worked for the federal government since 1991 and underwent a security screening process before her posting, a military spokesman said.

“She no longer has access to restricted areas and her security clearance is under review,” said Lieutenant Sylvain Rousseau, public affairs officer for 14 Wing.

Also among those charged is a Canadian Coast Guard employee who works in a junior position aboard a vessel in the Coast Guard fleet.

Five of the people charged are from Ontario and four are from Nova Scotia.

Included among the Montreal residents charged in Operation Harrington is Ryan Wedding, 33, a former Olympic snowboarder who represented Canada in the 2002 Winter Games. He recently completed a four-year sentence he received after being charged with taking part in a conspiracy to purchase 24 kilos cocaine in a sting operation in the U.S. While serving the sentence, he was deported to Canada in December 2011. Wedding is originally from Coquitlam, B.C., but according to the indictment filed against him in Montreal court, he was residing in a condo on Viger St. W. while investigated in Operation Harrington. As of Tuesday afternoon, the RCMP was still trying to locate Wedding.

Indictments made public at the Montreal courthouse on Monday allege Wedding was part of two of the alleged cocaine smuggling conspiracies uncovered during Operation Harrington.

In 2010, the former Olympic athlete was facing the possibility of a 10-year sentence for his role in a plan to purchase 24 kilos of cocaine in San Diego. He was instead sentenced to four years because a judge was convinced he was a low risk of reoffending.

“I’m ashamed that I became part of the problem because for years, as part of being an athlete and having an outgoing personality, I was part of the solution. I’ve always mentored kids and encouraged kids and, well, people of all ages, to join sports and stay in school, stay clean, you know. I’ve always done that and I guess I lost my way,” Wedding told the U.S. District Court judge before he was sentenced in 2010.

At least three other Montreal residents — Normand Joseph Pomerleau, 64, Michael Charles Dibben, 60, and Edouard Semmikian, 61 — have yet to be arrested in Operation Harrington.

Adrian Humphreys of the National Post contributed to this report

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Laval police dismantled what they called “an important” drug-trafficking network on Thursday.

More than 70 officers from the Laval force carried out 14 search warrants on 10 homes and four vehicles, arresting eight people in connection with cocaine trafficking.

Eight of the houses were in Laval, while the other two were in Mont-Laurier and Ste-Agathe-des-Monts.

Because of the extent of the raid, about 30 officers from the Sûreté du Québec, Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP helped with the bust.

According to Laval police Const. Frank Di Genova, four of the eight arrested are family members, and seven of the arrested were known by police.

All eight arrested — two women and six men — were between the ages of 52 and 56.

The raids were part of an investigation that began in February 2014, targeting the family members from Chomedey.

Di Genova said the family and its accomplices had been trafficking cocaine for 20 to 30 years in the area.

Because of what they knew of the eight people they were targeting, Di Genova said, three SWAT teams from the Sureté du Québec were used for the raid, as well as one from the RCMP and two from the Laval police.

“Because of the history of the individuals arrested, we knew there could be a risk of firearms involved,” he said. “We couldn’t risk just sending an officer to knock at the door. We needed to involve the SWAT teams.”

The arrests went smoothly and no one was injured, Di Genova said, adding that the eight people had ties with “one or two” organized crime factions.

Hello and welcome to The Story So Far for Friday, May 8.

Click on the audio player below to hear the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

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Provincial police say they are in the process of dismantling a large drug-trafficking ring in the Montérégie region, with 200 officers sweeping in early Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Sûreté du Québec confirmed shortly before 9 a.m. that several types of drugs were being sold through the ring, including marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine. It was unclear how many arrests had been made as the operation was still underway.

The SQ’s mixed regional squad was being assisted by local police, the spokesperson said. A complete summary of the drug bust is expected to be released later in the day Wednesday.

Six people appeared before a judge in Quebec Superior Court on Wednesday after a series of drug busts in and around the Montreal area on June 16.

Police from Montreal, Laval and the Sûreté du Québec carried out raids on Tuesday, June 16, in connection with what they describe as a large cocaine-trafficking network with ties to organized crime.

The network, operating primarily in the western portion of the island, is considered by police as one of the most important suppliers of cocaine in the Montreal area.

Nine search warrants were carried out. Police arrested 12 individuals: one in Laval, two in Vaudreuil-Dorion, one in Île-Bizard and eight in Dollard-des-Ormeaux.

The arrests are the culmination of months of investigation by the organized crime division of the Montreal police department.

Officers confiscated seven kilos of cocaine, $70,000 in cash, a bulletproof vest, seven weapons and ammunition.

Of the 12 people arrested, nine remain in custody.

Six of them were arraigned on Wednesday, June 17, on charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and weapons possession.

• Darrell Van Elk, 49, was charged with possession of an illegal weapon and conspiracy.
• Bryan Cullen, 26, was charged with arms possession and conspiracy.
• Michael Ferrarelli, 24, was charged with trafficking, possession of an illegal weapon and conspiracy.
• Michael Soucy, 22, was charged with trafficking, drug possession with intent to traffic and conspiracy.
• William Stewart, 30, was charged with possession of cocaine and trafficking.
• Sergio Bulgarelli, 22, was charged with possession of cocaine, trafficking and breaking bail conditions.

asutherland@montrealgazette.com

Police have launched a series of raids, mostly in Longueuil, Thursday morning targeting a drug trafficking ring in the area.

Longueuil police are targeting 15 suspects in their investigation — dubbed Project Savon — including 14 men and one woman from the Montérégie. In all, 30 search warrants are being executed on dwellings and vehicles belonging to the suspects.

About 160 officers are taking part in the operation, which included raids in St-Simon-de-Bagot and Ste-Julie.

The group was trafficking mostly in cocaine. The suspects are expected in court Thursday to face charges.

Also Thursday morning, Laval police, along with officers from the RCMP, executed search warrants at several locations in Laval targeting a group that dealt in cocaine and synthetic drugs.

The investigation by Laval police’s organized crime group started in November 2014 after a tip from the public. Five people have been arrested and will appear in court Thursday afternoon to face charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy.