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A Dollard des Ormeaux businessman who is alleged to have been the head of a large-scale cocaine trafficking ring recently busted by police is the owner of a West Island bar that was already in trouble before his arrest.
Darrell Van Elk, 49, a longtime resident of a quiet suburban neighbourhood in the West Island, is scheduled to have a bail hearing on Monday at the Montreal courthouse. He has been detained since June 16, when the Montreal police led an operation assisted by the Sûreté du Québec and Laval police that resulted in the arrests of a dozen people, including several in the West Island. Five have since been charged with being part of a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in large quantities. On the day the arrests were made, the Montreal police alleged “this network, based principally on the western part of the island, had established business links with different criminal groups and was considered an important supplier (of cocaine) in (Montreal).”
Van Elk is reported to be the head of the network, which allegedly had ties to organized crime groups like the Mafia, Hells Angels and the West End Gang, although his criminal record does not reflect this. In 1984, while he still lived in the same neighbourhood in Dollard des Ormeaux, he was charged with the simple possession of hashish. He pleaded guilty less than two weeks after he was charged and his sentence included a conditional discharge.
His name is also mentioned in connection with a drug-smuggling effort uncovered by the RCMP in 2005 during Project Colisée, a major probe into the Mafia in Montreal, but the references to Van Elk involve no criminal activity. At the time, the RCMP was monitoring Richard Griffin, a man tied to the West End Gang who was later murdered in 2006, while he was plotting to smuggle 1,300 kilograms of cocaine into Canada along with men tied to the Mafia. Van Elk, who was not arrested in Colisée, was spotted on Feb. 13, 2005, by police doing surveillance while he visited the home of a man in Pointe-Claire whose company was believed to be connected to oil that was shipped in the same barrels Griffin used to smuggle some of the cocaine.
Darrell Van Elk is reported to be the head of the network that allegedly had ties to organized crime groups.
The charges filed in the current case represent the most serious accusations Van Elk has ever faced. Three charges allege he was in possession of loaded and prohibited or restricted firearms when he was arrested on June 16. A conviction under any of the charges carries a mandatory-minimum prison sentence of three years. It also means Van Elk is required to prove he does not represent a danger to society when he requests bail, as opposed to the Crown having to prove he should be detained. Another charge alleges he and four other men — Michael Ferrarelli, 24, of Vaudreuil Dorion, Michael Soucy, 22, of Laval, and Dollard des Ormeaux residents Bryan Cullen, 27, and William Stewart, 30 — conspired to traffic in drugs between January 2014 and the date of their arrests.
Monday’s bail hearing is probably not the only thing on Van Elk’s mind. Just three weeks before his arrest, the restaurant he co-owns in Pointe-Claire, Marlowe, was summoned to a hearing before the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux. According to the notice the provincial liquor board sent out in May, the Montreal police objected to Marlowe, a restaurant on St-Jean Blvd. just northeast of the Fairview shopping mall, being allowed to maintain its liquor permit after it was sold to Van Elk (who is listed as its president on the Quebec business registry) and another man in 2010. The liquor board had to send three notices requesting information over who would control Marlowe’s liquor permit and only received the information in May 2012. The following year, in April 2013, the Montreal police raised its objection saying it had concerns the new ownership would affect “tranquility and public security” near the restaurant.
A copy of the notice obtained by the Montreal Gazette lists several of the concerns raised by police. Parts of it are redacted, but it appears someone associated with the restaurant — but not Van Elk nor its co-owner — currently faces charges in connection with a sexual assault dating back to 2011 and armed assaults carried out in a restaurant in Montreal and a bar in 2011 and 2014, respectively.
The notice also lists a long series of events when the Montreal police arrested people either inside the bar or outside of it between 2011 and 2014. On two different occasions in February 2012, officers found clients from Marlowe drunk and asleep at the wheel of their car in the restaurant’s parking lot. On March 31, 2012, a woman called the police after she woke up at her parents house and had difficulty recalling what happened to her the previous evening. She eventually recalled having consumed a glass of wine at Marlowe and later having woken up while lying on a street. She had been injured and robbed. Another woman filed a complaint, in June 2011, alleging she was sexually assaulted inside the bar by another client. Between August 2011 and August 2014, the Montreal police were also called to deal with incidents involving violence on seven different occasions, including one where a client was found bleeding and lying on the ground outside Marlowe. He had been roughed up after having tossed a table through the restaurant’s window.
The liquor board has scheduled two days of hearings concerning Marlowe beginning on July 20.
A Quebec Court judge has denied bail for three men arrested in April in an RCMP investigation into several conspiracies to smuggle cocaine into Canada.
Among the people charged in the case are a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who has managed to avoid arrest for more than two months, as well as a civilian employee with the Royal Canadian Air Force and an employee of the Canadian Coast Guard who were arrested in April but not detained.
On Thursday, Quebec Court Judge Yves Paradis denied bail for three other people arrested in Operation Harrington, an RCMP investigation into eight separate conspiracies to smuggle cocaine into different parts of Canada spread out from Newfoundland to Toronto. Three of the eight conspiracies involved plans to bring large quantities of cocaine into Montreal, including one that would have involved a 5,000-kilogram load.
The judge heard evidence in the bail hearing over the course of four days in June. Philipos Kollaros, 35, a man originally from British Columbia who was living in a recently built luxury condo in downtown Montreal when arrested, was denied release, along with Gary Christopher Meister, 60, of Bedford, N.S., and Stephen Alexander Fleming, 33, of Halifax.
Evidence presented during the hearing has been placed under a publication ban. While referring to a section of the Criminal Code, Paradis said keeping the men detained while they are charged “is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.”
Darlene Richards, 54, of Greenwood, N.S., was not required to be present at the Montreal courthouse. Her arrest in Operation Harrington made headlines in April after it was revealed that while investigated she was a Royal Canadian Air Force employee who had security clearance and access to restricted areas at 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia, the largest airbase on the East Coast. She was the administrative assistant to the commanding officer of 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron at the time of her arrest. The 413 Squadron is the primary air search and rescue unit on Canada’s East Coast, responsible for an area that goes from the south of Nova Scotia, north to Iqaluit on Baffin Island, west to Quebec City and east to the middle of the Atlantic.
Another person not required to be present at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday was Meister’s brother, Delbert William Meister, 69, of Halifax, who was an employee of the Canadian Coast Guard while investigated in Operation Harrington. The cases against all accused return to court in September, a date scheduled to plan the preliminary inquiry.
The RCMP is still trying to locate Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding, 33, a former resident of British Columbia who moved to Montreal, and was residing in a condo near Kollaros’s condo, while both were being investigated. Wedding, who faces conspiracy charges in two Harrington-related cases, represented Canada in the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He recently completed a four-year sentence he received after being charged with taking part in a conspiracy to purchase 24 kilos of cocaine in a sting operation in the U.S. While serving the sentence, he was deported to Canada in December 2011.
Wedding and Kollaros were accused, along with three other people in Operation Harrington, with taking part in a conspiracy to import cocaine into Canada between April 26, 2014, and April 2015. The same indictment identifies three other people as non-indicted co-conspirators, meaning they do not face charges in the case. That includes Jahanbakhsh Meshkati, a 46-year-old man who was fatally shot in Burnaby, B.C., on Aug. 10, 2014. Meshkati had reportedly just moved to Burnaby, from Toronto, when he was gunned down. The homicide remains unsolved.
Another person charged in Montreal who is still being sought by the RCMP is Normand Joseph Pomerleau, a 64-year-old Villeray resident. He is charged, along with Gary Christopher Meister and Fleming, with conspiring to bring cocaine from Colombia into Canada.
By E. Eduardo Castillo And Katherine Corcoran
MEXICO CITY — Top drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped through a 1.5-kilometre (1 mile) tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell, Mexico’s top security official announced Sunday.
With the elaborate escape hatch built allegedly without the detection of authorities, Guzman has done what Mexican authorities promised would not happen after his re-capture last year — slipped out of a maximum security prison for the second time.
Eighteen employees from various parts of the Altiplano prison 90 kilometres (56 miles) west of Mexico City have been taken in for questioning, Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said in a news conference Sunday.
A manhunt began immediately late Saturday for the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which has an international reach and is believed to control most of the major crossing points for drugs at the U.S. border with Mexico.
Associated Press journalists near the Altiplano said the roads were being heavily patrolled by Federal Police, who had also set up checkpoints. Flights were also suspended at Toluca airport near the penitentiary in the state of Mexico.
Guzman was last seen about 9 p.m. Saturday in the shower area of the Altiplano prison, according to a statement from the National Security Commission issued early Sunday. After a time, he was lost by the prison’s security camera surveillance network. Upon checking his cell, authorities found it empty.
Guzman’s escape is an embarrassment to the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which has received plaudits for its aggressive approach to top drug lords. Since the government took office in late 2012, Mexican authorities have nabbed or killed six of them, including Guzman.
Guzman was caught by authorities for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison on drug-trafficking related charges. He escaped from Puente Grande, another Mexican maximum-security prison in western Jalisco state, in 2001 with the help of prison guards. The lore says he escaped in a laundry cart, although there have been several versions of how he got away.
He was re-captured in February 2014 after eluding authorities for days across his home state of Sinaloa, for which the cartel is named. He was listed as 56 years old last year, though there are discrepancies in his birth date.
Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. as well as Mexico, and was on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted list. The U.S. has said it would file an extradition request, though it’s not clear if that has already happened.
Former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told The AP earlier this year that sending Guzman to the United States would save Mexico a lot of money, but said Mexico would prosecute him at home as a matter of national sovereignty.
He dismissed concerns that Guzman could escape a second time. That risk “does not exist,” Murillo Karam said.
During his first stint as a fugitive, Guzman transformed himself from a middling Mexican capo into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. His fortune grew to be estimated at more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the “World’s Most Powerful People” and ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela.
Guzman has long been known for his ability to pay off local residents and even authorities, who would tip him off to security operations launched for his capture. He finally was tracked down to a modest beachside high-rise in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan on Feb. 22, 2014, where he had been hiding with his wife and twin daughters. He was taken in the early morning without a shot fired.
But before they reached him, security forces went on a several-day chase through Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. They found houses where Guzman supposedly had been staying with steel-enforced doors and elaborate tunnels that allowed him to escape through the sewer system.
Even with his 2014 capture, Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel empire continues to stretch throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. The cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last decade, taking at least an estimated 100,000 lives.
Altiplano, which is considered the main and most secure of Mexico’s federal prisons, also houses Zetas drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Trevino, and Edgar Valdes Villarreal, known as “La Barbie,” of the Beltran Leyva cartel.
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.
The man accused of first-degree murder in the death and dismemberment of his fiancée, Samantha Higgins, reportedly led police to her missing body parts on Tuesday. According to Radio-Canada, Nicholas Fontanelli, 22, led police to the municipality of Très-Saint-Sacrement on Tuesday, where Higgins’s remains were found. The municipality is about 20 kilometres away from Hinchinbrooke, where Higgins’s body was first found dismembered last week. Radio-Canada reports that witnesses saw police deploy search boats and a helicopter to the area, and later removed at least one bag from the Châteauguay River. Neither the Sûreté du Québec or Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions would confirm this information.
Revenue Quebec has taken steps to recover $270,000 in lost tax revenue from convicted drug trafficker Serge Imbeault. The tax agency received court approval to place legal mortgages on possessions and property owned by Imbeault. Revenue Quebec also seized bank accounts belonging to Imbeault. Imbeault, 51, was arrested on March 7, 2013 when Montreal police dismantled a drug trafficking ring that operated in LaSalle, Lachine and Verdun. Police seized cocaine, methamphetamine, heroine and marijuana when Imbeault was arrested. The facts of the case relayed to Revenue Quebec allowed the agency to determine Imbeault’s undeclared income and taxes owing. “Fiscal laws in Quebec don’t make the distinction between activities that are legal or illegal,” said Geneviève Laurier, a spokesperson for Revenue Quebec. “All revenue that someone earns, whether legal or illegal, must be declared. That is the principle in Quebec.” She said that between 2012 and 2014, it was calculated that Imbeault had undeclared revenue totalling $476,000. “For certain years, he declared no income. Zero,” Laurier said.
Less than 24 hours after the Bank of Canada cuts its key interest rate, Canada’s big banks have partially followed suit. The central bank cut its rate by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday to 0.5 per cent. The banks, in turn, cut their prime interest rate by 0.15 percentage points to 2.7 per cent. It’s the second time the central bank cut its key rate this year. When it chopped the rate in January by a quarter point, the big banks passed on only a portion of the rate cut to their customers then, too.
And finally, Greece got a triple dose of good news on Thursday, when creditors agreed to open talks on a third bailout package, to give the country an interim loan to cover its debts, and to provide more support to its shuttered banks. Greece’s fellow states in the 19-country eurozone said they were willing to open talks on a new rescue package worth 85 billion euros ($93 billion) over three years after Athens approved a series of tax hikes and economic reforms overnight. The austerity bill triggered a revolt in the governing party and demonstrations in central Athens, one of which briefly turned violent, but was required by creditors as a precondition for starting bailout talks.
Stay with us for more on these stories and breaking news when it happens at montrealgazette.com
Revenue Quebec has taken steps to recover $270,000 in lost tax revenue from convicted drug trafficker Serge Imbeault.
The tax agency received court approval to place legal mortgages on possessions and property owned by Imbeault. Revenue Quebec also seized bank accounts belonging to Imbeault.
Imbeault, 51, was arrested on March 7, 2013, when Montreal police dismantled a drug trafficking ring that operated in LaSalle, Lachine and Verdun. Police seized cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana when Imbeault was arrested. The facts of the case relayed to Revenue Quebec allowed the agency to determine Imbeault’s undeclared income and taxes owing.
“Fiscal laws in Quebec don’t make the distinction between activities that are legal or illegal,” said Geneviève Laurier, a spokesperson for Revenue Quebec. “All revenue that someone earns, whether legal or illegal, must be declared. That is the principle in Quebec.”
She said that between 2012 and 2014, it was calculated that Imbeault had undeclared revenue totalling $476,000. “For certain years, he declared no income. Zero,” Laurier said.
“Thanks to the elements of the police investigation, we were able to determine that by selling drugs, he had revenue of close to half a million dollars,” Laurier said.
She added that because the income was the result of a sale, although illegal, Revenue Quebec also calculated the amount of sales tax that it would have collected.
Among the items seized are at least one residence, vehicles and home furnishings.
In December 2014, Imbeault pleaded guilty to charges of drug possession with the intent to traffic, and conspiracy to traffic drugs. He was sentenced to two years less a day of prison time.
An investigation into an alleged drug ring led to nine raids, five arrests, and more than 2 million counterfeit alprazolam pills — commonly known as Xanax — being seized on the South Shore on Tuesday.
Among the arrested and facing charges are Simon and Christian Davidson, sons of Ian Davidson, a retired Montreal police officer who had allegedly attempted to sell a list of police informants to criminal organizations. Davidson was arrested in 2011 and committed suicide in a hotel room the next year.
The investigation started when Laval police received information that the pills were being shipped from different post offices around the city.
Police found that shipments containing thousands of counterfeit pills were leaving from Laval, Montreal and Toronto, mostly toward destinations in the United States and Western Canada.
The scope of the operation led to Laval, Longueuil and provincial police collaborating with the RCMP.
Examples of some of the more than 2 million counterfeit pills seized during raids in Longueuil, Brossard and Beloeil on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015.
The raids took place in Longueuil, Brossard and Beloeil on Tuesday. Police seized five machines, including four that can produce up to 20,000 pills an hour. They also seized firearms, a bulletproof vest, and $200,000 in cash.
None of the five arrested had previous criminal records, said Laval police spokesperson Franco Di Genova, who described the drug ring as “very structured.” All five are expected to appear in court on Friday for bail hearings. They face a combined 34 criminal charges.
Di Genova said it’s probable more arrests will follow.
Machinery seized by police on Montreal’s south shore capable of producing 20,000 pills an hour. Five people were arrested and more than 2 million counterfeit alprazolam pills were seized in raids in Longueuil, Brossard and Beloeil on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015.
Fifty Laval and Sûreté du Québec police officers swooped down on four Laval residences Wednesday in an anti-drug trafficking operation dubbed Drone.
The operation, which began in March, was aimed at an alleged synthetic drug trafficking ring in the district.
Ten people were arrested and 4,000 methamphetamine pills were seized. Methamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant, is highly addictive.
Among those arrested, seven will appear in court in Laval to face charges of drug trafficking and one for breaching conditions. Two others were released on a promise to appear.
A Montreal police officer, who was charged on Thursday with drug trafficking and other criminal offences, will face a judge on Friday to seek bail.
The Montreal Police Department suspended Philippe Bonenfant, a patrol officer with downtown Station 21 with six years’ service, without pay after he was charged at the Montreal courthouse, said Cmdr. Khanh Du Dinh, who handles community relations for the Montreal police.
Bonenfant faces charges of trafficking ecstasy and speed, counselling someone to commit a criminal act, possession of a prohibited weapon, which in this case is a pair of brass knuckles, and fraudulent use of a computer, Dinh said. The latter charge concerns the use of the Quebec police information centre, a database housing information for use only in the course of police work, he said.
Bonenfant, who is 29, was arrested on Wednesday. However, details about what sparked the investigation or when it began can’t be disclosed at the moment because they’re part of the evidence that will be presented in court, Dinh said.
Bonenfant’s colleagues met with their station commander and were informed of the arrest, he said.
No other arrests have been made at this time, he said.
“It’s always sad to see something like that happen,” he said, adding that “it’s a rare case.” The police force, like other organizations, isn’t immune to such incidents, Dinh said. “It affects the image of the department. But we console ourselves by the fact that the majority of our police officers do a professional job, have integrity and meet our expectations. We’ll continue to do our job.”
Another Montreal officer, Amir El Alfy, pleaded guilty in May of this year to illegally ordering and receiving 250 capsules of the drugs Viagra and Cialis without a prescription as well as to stealing a protester’s iPhone in 2012.
He was one of four officers, including a second member of the Montreal police and two Longueuil officers, arrested in 2013.
The second Montreal officer, Charles Lavallée, pleaded guilty last fall to trafficking steroids and possession of hashish.
A Montreal police officer charged with drug trafficking and other criminal offences was released on bail on Friday.
Philippe Bonenfant, 29, was arrested Wednesday and faces charges of trafficking ecstasy and speed, counselling someone to commit a criminal act, and possession of a prohibited weapon: a pair of brass knuckles.
He was also charged with fraudulent use of a computer — which allegedly took place between March 10 and Sept. 7 of this year — for using a police database that houses information that is supposed to be used only for police work.
Bonenfant had been working for six years out of Station 21 in downtown Montreal. The Montreal Police Department immediately suspended him without pay.
He appeared at the Montreal courthouse on Friday, handcuffed and wearing a black polo-shirt, to listen to the long list of conditions he needs to respect.
He agreed to give a $5,000 deposit as part of his bail and to respect a curfew ordering him to be at his house in Chambly between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. every day.
He’s also forbidden from having a cellphone, visiting bars or restaurants that have liquor licences, being anywhere where there could be drugs being used or sold, or being with anyone who has a criminal record. Bonenfant also cannot go within 200 metres of two people’s homes or workplaces: the person he allegedly counselled about committing a criminal act, and a witness.
When asked in court if he still possessed any weapons, he shook his head and said he didn’t.
“Given the severity of the accusations, the Crown is satisfied with the conditions that the court imposed today,” Crown prosecutor Denise St-Jacques said after the hearing.
Bonenfant’s case is expected back in court in February.
It has been almost two years since the likes of Salvatore Cazzetta, Gregory Woolley and Stefano Sollecito were seen in public at the same event, as among about 1,000 mourners at the visitation for Vito Rizzuto, the head of the Mafia in Montreal who had died a week earlier.
With their arrests in a drug-trafficking investigation on Thursday, along with Montreal defence lawyer Loris Cavaliere, Rizzuto’s surviving son, Leonardo Rizzuto, whom police describe as one of his two co-successors, and 43 other people, the police operation has exposed a “perfect” criminal organization that had been assembled since Vito Rizzuto’s passing and that might have made the don proud.
Among those arrested are members of the Hells Angels, major street gangs and the Mafia, and it recalls the legacy of Vito Rizzuto, who during his reign struck new ground for his organization by forming alliances with outside criminal gangs, says Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organized crime who has written several books on the Mafia and teaches a course on Mafia history and culture at Queen’s University in Kingston.
“One of his major accomplishments was the creation of the consortium, the strategic alliances between the Mafia, Hells Angels, West End Gang, the Colombian cartels,” he said.
“What this new management was trying to accomplish was a new strategic alliance with the Hells Angels and the street gangs. They were trying to rebuild the same concept introduced by Vito Rizzuto. … They were trying to put together a perfect organization to deal with drug-trafficking or other major sources of income.”
In fact, the pieces were already present at the time of Rizzuto’s death.
Nicaso lauded the police operation, which he said bored through three layers of the illegal drug trade in Montreal: the importation of large quantities of illegal drugs, which is handled by the Mafia, the distribution of the drugs, which is the domain of outlaw biker gangs, and point-of-sale on city streets, which in parts of Montreal is the bailiwick of street gangs.
“So this was a brilliant operation,” he said of the police. “This operation targeted in a very good and efficient way the (entire) criminal organization. So this should be a case study.”
A fourth and crucial layer in a criminal conspiracy is money-laundering, he said, but it was unclear as of Thursday whether the police operation had attacked that.
However, what is significant is that among those arrested is a lawyer, a profession that represents the juncture between the underworld and the legitimate economy, Nicaso said.
“The Mafia without professionals, without accountants, without lawyers, without businessmen, without politicians, is like coffee without caffeine,” he said.
The police charge that Cavaliere acted as a facilitator and mediator for members of the criminal alliance and allowed his law office in Little Italy to be used for their regular meetings. (Leonardo Rizzuto is also a lawyer.)
“If you want to dismantle a criminal organization, you have to target the upper world and the underworld,” Nicaso said. “You can’t just put in jail alleged members of a criminal organization because they’re replaceable. But if you target the wider circle that helps the Mafia get stronger, then you can accomplish something.”
The arrest of the lawyer is a coup for the police, organized crime experts say, because lawyers are a difficult group to target in an investigation because of solicitor-client privilege. It’s difficult for police to obtain permission for a wiretap, and lawyers are the one profession exempted from Canada’s money laundering and terrorist financing law.
The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the exemption in February, which means that lawyers are not required to report on clients’ suspicious financial transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or Fintrac.
The Supreme Court ruling said the law provides inadequate protection for confidences that are subject to solicitor-client privilege.
Canada is unlike a lot of countries in excluding lawyers from such provisions, said Margaret Beare, a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.
“I think it’s a problem,” she said, adding that she too was surprised to see lawyers among those charged on Thursday. “The very large money-laundering cases will very often have a lawyer involved in it.
“Lawyers are important to organized crime.”
Meanwhile, pundits and experts are speculating about who may fill the void following Thursday’s arrests.
Just as two years ago, one of the elements may already be staring everyone in the face, Nicaso suggested. One of the largest wreaths at Vito Rizzuto’s funeral was sent by the Hells Angels in Ontario, he said.
“I don’t think we’ll have a super crime family with the same power they used to have,” Nicaso said of the Montreal Mafia. “But a very strong and rising power is the Hells Angels in Ontario and Quebec. And we got the indication that they were strong players and strong allies of the Mafia at the funeral of Vito Rizzuto.”
The alleged heads of the most powerful criminal organizations in Montreal were rounded up Thursday as part of a drug trafficking investigation that has shaken up the city’s underworld and uncovered an incredible murder plot.
Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, and longtime friend Stefano Sollecito, 48, were described as being the new heads of the Mafia in Montreal after more than 200 police officers made 48 arrests as part of two investigations — Projects Magot and Mastiff — that were joined together and revealed the Mafia, the Hells Angels and the city’s major street gangs were allegedly working in concert to control drug trafficking in the city and share in the profits their alliance generated.
Rizzuto is the son of Vito Rizzuto, the former head of the Mafia in Montreal who died of natural causes in 2013. Sollecito is the son of Rocco Sollecito, a longtime Mafia leader who remained loyal to the organization while attempts were made to overtake it roughly four years ago.
The police also alleged that Loris Cavaliere, 61, a longtime defence lawyer, used his office in Little Italy on St-Laurent Blvd., as a place where the major players assumed they could meet in private because of the attorney-client privilege that keeps their conversations secret.
Leonardo Rizzuto, grandson of Nicolo Rizzuto Sr., arrives at the funeral of his grandfather and reputed former head of the Montreal Mafia at the Notre-Dame-de-la-Défense church in Little Italy in Montreal Nov. 15, 2010.
Cavaliere was arrested Thursday morning and is charged with “participating or contributing to the activity of a criminal organization” to facilitate its crimes. Cavaliere is also charged with trafficking in cocaine, between Jan. 1, 2013 and Nov. 16, 2015, along with nine other men, including three who are considered to be very influential members of Montreal-area street gangs. Cavaliere was a longtime friend of Vito Rizzuto’s.
Also charged on Thursday was Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the former Hells Angels leader who is serving a life sentence for having issued orders that led to the murders of two provincial prison guards and the attempted murder of another in 1997. Boucher, 62, is alleged to have used his daughter, Alexandra Mongeau, 25, to relay messages to his former bodyguard, Gregory Woolley, 43, as part of a plan to kill Raynald Desjardins, a former right-hand man of Vito Rizzuto, who is currently awaiting his sentence for his role in the murder of a Mafioso.
According to an indictment filed at the Longueuil courthouse, the plot to kill Desjardins began in July and ended on Nov. 9.
Lawyer Loris Cavaliere at the preliminary hearing for Danny De Gregoria on a weapons charge at the Palais de Justice in Montreal, Wednesday May 9, 2012.
Salvatore Cazzetta, 60, a longtime member of the Hells Angels and one of its more influential members in Quebec, was also arrested on Thursday. He is alleged to be the man who handled the money for the alliance between the Mafia, Hells Angels and street gangs.
Sûreté du Québec Chief Inspector Patrick Bélanger said the combined investigations “allowed the arrests of the very influential heads of organized crime who formed an alliance.”
“This alliance was born out of a desire to control territory, particularly drug trafficking, and more particularly the area of Montreal, and to share revenues,” Bélanger said. “During the investigation, Gregory Woolley, 43, of St-Hubert, was identified as the head of street gangs and also an influential player within the alliance.”
“For their part, Stefano Sollecito and Leonardo Rizzuto were identified as the heads of the (Mafia in Montreal). They took the place of Vito Rizzuto who died in 2013.”
When Cavaliere appeared before Quebec Court Judge Christian Tremblay at the Montreal courthouse late Thursday afternoon he appeared calm. The Crown objected to his release and Tremblay informed him that the court will likely not be able to set a date for a bail hearing until next week.
“I understand,” Cavaliere said before he thanked the judge for pointing out the delay to him.
A joint SQ, RCMP and Montreal Police task force raided the Cavaliere & Associés offices in Montreal Nov. 19, 2015.
Rizzuto smiled broadly when he made his first appearance, also before Tremblay. He also appeared to have no strong reaction when told he will have to wait a week before a bail hearing can be set.
Not all of the defence lawyers who packed into room 4.02 of the Montreal courthouse agreed to waive the normal three-day maximum limit before an accused must have a bail hearing in Canada. Anne-Marie Lanctot, an attorney who represented Cazzetta on Thursday, objected to the lengthy delay. She said the Hells Angel had recently been operated on and was still recovering.
Lanctot also objected when informed that Boucher’s daughter would also have to wait more than a few days for a bail hearing. Mongeau appeared at the Montreal courthouse on a charge alleging she was in possession of money derived from a crime, sometime between 2013 and 2015. Lanctot said that Mongeau had a baby three weeks ago and argued it was unfair for a woman in that situation to have to wait a week before her bail hearing could be set.
“I can’t believe that in 2015 something can’t be done in this situation,” Lanctot said in apparent frustration.
Salvatore Cazzetta, right, leaves a Longueuil courthouse south of Montreal, with his lawyer, Thursday Nov. 20, 2014.
“I have empathy for what you’re saying,” Tremblay replied before trying to find a solution by discussing it with the co-ordinating judge for the Montreal region during a quick break. But Lanctot was later informed Mongeau is scheduled to appear at the Longueuil courthouse on Friday, where she is charged with the murder conspiracy. That means Mongeau will have to wait until her case is moved up to Superior Court before she can have a bail hearing. When Lanctot was informed of this she said arrangements might be made to have Mongeau’s baby brought to her at a detention centre.
All of the accused who appeared before Tremblay were ordered not to communicate with a man who was used as an undercover agent during the investigation “as well as members of his family.” Oddly, almost everyone who received the court-ordered condition appeared to not recognize the man’s name, which is under a publication ban.
The Sûreté du Québec said that 12 people were arrested Wednesday morning after a series of raids in the Victoriaville area.
Officers with the Escouade Régionale Mixte (ERM) carried out the raids in relation to a drug trafficking ring in the area.
All 12 people arrested live in Victoriaville, the SQ said in a statement. A dozen locations were searched, mainly the homes of those arrested.
Cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines, as well a one gun, were seized during raids.
The SQ says the investigation began in July and involved more than 60 police officers.
Police arrested 10 people in Laval, Montreal and the North Shore Wednesday in connection with an alleged cocaine and marijuana drug ring.
Following a six-month investigation by Laval police, about 80 officers descended on houses in Montreal, Laval, Terrebonne and Mascouche early Wednesday. They nabbed 10 suspects, a “significant quantity” of cocaine and marijuana, $40,000 in cash and six vehicles.
“During our initial investigation, there didn’t appear to be any links to organized crime,” said Evelyne Boudreau, with the Laval police. “It seems, for now, as though it was just these individuals involved.”
The raid brought together various municipal police forces and the Sûreté du Québec and saw search warrants executed in homes and businesses as far north as St-Jérôme.
The suspects, whose identities are being withheld, will appear in court Thursday. They range in age from 22 to 60.
A man who admitted to being part of a Mafia-tied cocaine trafficking network has received a lighter sentence after his brother was murdered last year.
After admitting he participated in a drug trafficking conspiracy uncovered by an investigation by the Montreal police anti-gang squad in 2011, Massimo Campellone, 30, walked out of the Montreal courthouse with no jail time left to serve.
Quebec Court Judge Lori Renée Weitzman agreed with a joint recommendation that Campellone receive a sentence of two years minus one day, which he can serve in the community, including one full year of house arrest.
Campellone’s new home address was placed under seal, through a court order, because he was the object of the same threat made to his younger brother, 24-year-old Marco Claudio, who was shot in front of the family’s home in September.
“And (Massimo Campellone) received the same threat as well,” said prosecutor Marilène Laviolette while explaining why the Crown agreed to the relatively light sentence when compared to other people who had important roles in the drug trafficking network. The older bother served roughly two weeks behind bars in 2011 before he was granted bail.
Weitzman said she agreed with the sentence recommendation, in part, because of what Campellone experienced last year.
Campellone’s life was altered dramatically on Sept. 18, when his younger brother was fatally shot in front of his home in Rivière-des-Prairies. The homicide victim had survived an earlier attempt on his life, in August 2013, when someone shot him, in front of the same home. He managed to drive himself to a hospital, and refused to collaborate with the police.
According to a few police sources, the younger brother’s death was cause for concern among the highest levels of the Mafia in Montreal in September as the motive behind his death apparently involved a dispute over drug trafficking turf. The Montreal police have yet to make an arrest in connection with the homicide.
Both brothers were arrested in Operation Abduction, in December 2011, but the younger sibling opted to plead guilty much earlier, on June 30, 2014, or roughly 10 months after the first attempt on his life was made. He was sentenced to a 12-month prison term and two years of probation, which was still in effect when he was killed.
Operation Abduction targeted a cocaine trafficking network that operated primarily in northeastern Montreal and sold drugs in locations previously controlled by Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito, a Mafia leader who died inside a federal penitentiary in 2013 from cyanide poisoning. When arrests were made in 2011, police alleged the ring was run by two brothers, Emanuele and Carmelo Padula, with permission from De Vito even though he was detained at the time and awaiting a trial over cocaine smuggling.
Emanuele Padula, 36, was sentenced last year to an overall six-year prison term for his leading role in the drug trafficking network uncovered by Operation Abduction. His younger brother Carmelo, 32, was sentenced just last week to a 52-month prison term. Laviolette told Weitzman on Monday that Massimo Campellone’s role was to collect cash from street-level dealers and deliver the money to Carmelo Padula.
Massimo Campellone’s plea agreement on Monday means only one of the 12 people arrested in Operation Abduction has a case pending. Sentences have ranged from a 20-month suspended sentence to the six-year prison term Emanuele Padula received.
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Claudio Campellone, 55, the father of both men, was out on a statutory release while serving a three-year prison term for fraud when his younger son was killed in front of the family’s home. According to a Parole Board of Canada decision made in January, the family decided to sell the home after Marco Claudio was killed. In January, the parole board dealt with a special request from the father to modify the conditions of his release so he could mourn his loss with the support of someone who has a criminal record. His previous conditions prohibited the father from associating with known criminals.
The sentence Claudio Campellone is still serving involves a fraud case that generated headlines in the Quebec City region a few years ago. He and his older brother Giuseppe, 58, defrauded several companies — including maple syrup producers in the Beauce, Gaspé and Mégantic regions — out of more than $364,000. They purchased the items on credit, quickly resold them at bargain prices to distributors and didn’t pay a cent back to the suppliers.
According to previous parole board decisions, Claudio Campellone has attributed his criminal record, which includes about 20 convictions dating back to 1981, to drug abuse and a gambling addiction that left him a substantial debt with a casino about 10 years ago. He also blamed his older brother for defrauding the syrup producers and farmers, and said he only associated with his sibling because their mother wanted it that way.
Giuseppe Campellone ended up with a lighter sentence — a prison term of two years minus one day — for his role the maple syrup fraud scheme, but that was because he has less of a criminal record. He was granted parole, by the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles, in July. According to a parole decision made in his case last summer, he blamed his brother for the fraud scheme.
Montreal and Laval police conducted a series of raids Wednesday morning in unrelated cases that led to the arrests of 26 people.
Montreal police conducted 22 searches of homes and vehicles, mainly in the northern part of the island, as well as in St-Hubert.
The raids, part of a larger investigation called Accalmie, targeted street gangs dealing in drugs, police said.
In all, 18 people were arrested. Police also seized 710 grams of cocaine, three ounces of crack and 25 grams of marijuana.
In Laval, a spokesperson for the police said six raids were conducted in the city, as well as one in Lorraine and another in St-Lin.
The target was a well-organized network of drug traffickers who were selling crack and cocaine in the Chomedey district of Laval, police said.
Eight people were arrested, and the majority of them were known to police.
More than 100 officers from Laval, the Escouade régionale mixte Laval-Laurentides-Lanaudière, the Sûreté du Québec and the Thérèse-de-Blainville police force took part in the operation, dubbed Dentelle.
There is no link to street gangs or the rash of missing girls from a youth centre, Laval police confirmed.
One of the most influential leaders in the Mafia in Montreal was hoping to soon live the life of a simple retired gardener when he is released from a federal penitentiary but has been ordered instead to reside at a halfway house for the next three years.
Francesco Arcadi, 62, received one of the lengthiest sentences in Project Colisée, the lengthy RCMP-led investigation that produced the arrests, in 2006, of six men who formed a committee that ran the Rizzuto organization after Vito Rizzuto was arrested, in 2003, and was eventually extradited to the U.S. on a charge he took part in the murders of three mobsters in Brooklyn in 1981.
The committee included Rizzuto’s father Nicolo and his brother-in-law Paolo Renda (Vito Rizzuto died of natural causes in 2013, Renda disappeared in 2010 and Nicolo Rizzuto was killed later the same year). The Colisée investigation revealed that Arcadi operated as a street boss, handling matters that involved drug trafficking, cocaine smuggling and shipping marijuana to the U.S. When he pleaded guilty, in 2008, to conspiracy to import and export drugs, committing a crime for the profit of a criminal organization and possession of the proceeds of crime, he was left with an 11-year prison term. Arcadi was never granted parole and therefore will automatically qualify for a release when he reaches the two-thirds mark of his sentence.
The Parole Board of Canada is limited to imposing conditions on the release if they deem them necessary. In a decision made on Friday, the parole board ordered that Arcadi reside at a halfway house until his sentence expires in 2019. It is one of the toughest conditions the parole board can impose on an inmate in this situation. He is also not allowed to meet or communicate with people involved in criminal activities.
According to a written summary of the decision made on Friday, life behind bars has changed little for Arcadi.
“You were closed off and followed the law of Omerta (the Mafia’s code of silence) without opening up about your past or current life (and) while never showing concrete action or any desire to change your criminal way of life,” the author of the summary wrote. The document also notes that Arcadi appeared to enjoy the same influence among his peers while behind bars as he did when he ran the Rizzuto organization from a café in St-Léonard.
Arcadi told the parole board he wanted to retire to a simple life where he would “manage a garden, raise animals and spend the rest of your time with your family.” But the parole determined some form of control has to be maintained on Arcadi for the rest of his sentence. The decision makes reference to how two other men described only as “accomplices” were recently released and that the police allege this has “already had important repercussions in the criminal milieu and that a notable instability has been observed.” It is an apparent reference to two other men — Francesco Del Balso and Lorenzo Giordano — who formed the committee with Arcadi. Giordano was released in December and Del Balso received a decision on his upcoming statutory release on Monday.
Extra security measures were taken to screen people attending a sentence hearing at the Laval courthouse on Wednesday for a man with close ties to the Hells Angels who was recently warned by police that his life might be in danger.
Sergio Piccirilli, 56, learned during the hearing that the Crown is asking that he be sentenced to an 18-year prison term in a drug trafficking trial that took a decade to complete.
Anyone who wanted to attend the afternoon hearing had to go through a screening process where special constables used metal detectors to check people for weapons. In January, Piccirilli was advised by police that investigators had learned a rival criminal organization might be seeking to end his life. He was detained soon after the warning was issued but not for his safety. On Jan. 28, Quebec Court Judge Marie Suzanne Lauzon found Piccirilli guilty on 23 charges he faced in Project Cleopatra, an RCMP investigation into drug trafficking that resulted in the arrest of 36 people in 2006.
Piccirilli’s first trial was placed in a stay of proceedings, in 2008, after a judge determined the police and a prosecutor committed misconduct by trying to intimidate him into pleading guilty to some of the charges. The decision was contested by the Crown and the new trial was ordered. Piccirilli was convicted of conspiracy, issuing orders for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana as well as a variety of offences involving firearms.
“We find ourselves with a person who is in a category apart from (the other people arrested in Project Cleopatra),” prosecutor Dominique Dudemaine said while requesting a prison terms of up to 18 years. “We’re not talking about some guy selling drugs on a street corner.”
Dudemaine reminded Lauzon that while Piccirilli was investigated during Project Cleopatra he met with Hells Angel Salvatore Cazzetta and the two longtime friends discussed whether Piccirilli could rough up drug traffickers who were dealing on what Piccirilli considered his turf. Cazzetta, 61, is considered one of the most influential members of the biker gang in Quebec.
Dudemaine also noted that Torsten Trute, 52, a man who worked directly underneath Piccirilli, is currently serving a 12-year sentence.
Piccirilli’s lawyer is scheduled to make his sentence arguments on Friday.
Nine people were arrested, and a woman was sent to a hospital with an overdose in five separate early morning raids in Longueuil.
Longueuil Police raided five apartments starting about 5:30 Wednesday morning in the centre of the South Shore suburb to disrupt a local drug-dealing network in an operation called Projet Maestro.
The apartments were all located around the same area on Goyette St., Curé Poirier Blvd., Paul St., Bellerose St. and Grant St.
“We received some tips from the public around the holiday period and it was followed up by our patrollers and investigators, and it’s concluding today,” said Longueuil Police Constable Tommy Lacroix. “It was a local network, so this isn’t organized crime.”
Police seized some quantities of crack and cocaine in the apartments. They found a woman in her 20s in the Goyette St. apartment suffering from an apparent overdose, and took her to the hospital. It is not known if the woman also faces charges
Police said the people arrested also appear to linked to a home invasion and an armed assault that occurred within the last month.
A specially trained German shepherd in Arizona might be named Amigo but he is no friend to a Montrealer recently arrested with a large quantity of cocaine.
The brother of an influential leader in the Mafia in Montreal was recently arrested in Arizona after the specially trained police dog sniffed out 62 kilograms of cocaine in the vehicle he was riding in.
Girolamo Del Balso is the younger brother of Francesco, 45, a Mafia leader who was one of six men who took control of the Mafia in Montreal — roughly between 2003 and 2006 — after Vito Rizzuto was arrested and later jailed in the U.S. for having taken part in a conspiracy to murder three mobsters in Brooklyn in 1981.
Francesco “Chit” Del Balso was the more aggressive of the six men on the committee and his penchant for talking on a cellphone provided police with tons of evidence in Project Colisée, a major investigation into the Mafia in Montreal that produced dozens of arrests in 2006. One man involved with the Rizzuto organization later sarcastically referred to Francesco Del Balso, in court, as “the CEO of Bell” for how chatty he was found to be on police wiretaps. For example, a chilling recording of him warning an off-island contractor that he shouldn’t work in Montreal raised eyebrows when it was played during the Charbonneau Commission. His nickname, “Chit,” is an apparent reference to Del Balso’s fondness for gambling. While he was investigated in Colisée he was frequently seen at the Montreal Casino and police believed he was laundering his drug trafficking profits there.
According to a statement issued by the Arizona Police Department on Facebook, Girolamo Del Balso, 41, was arrested on Feb. 17 after a state trooper pulled over his vehicle for a moving violation.
“Due to suspicious circumstances, the trooper requested the assistance of” a specially trained police dog named Amigo, the police noted in the statement. “A resulting search of the vehicle yielded approximately 62 kilograms of cocaine destined for Canada. The cocaine has a street value of $3.7 million Canadian dollars.”
Girolamo Del Balso remains detained in the case in Arizona.
He also was arrested in Project Colisée, in 2008, in a second part of the investigation. He later admitted to being part of an illegal gaming house the Mafia had set up in an office building in St-Léonard and was sentenced to pay a $10,000 in 2012. In December, he pleaded guilty at the Montreal courthouse to threatening someone and was sentenced to pay a $750 fine.
News of the arrest in Arizona comes just a few weeks after Francesco Del Balso had conditions imposed, by the Parole Board of Canada, on his statutory release after having reached the two-thirds mark of the 11-year sentence he was left with in Project Colisée when he pleaded guilty to several charges in 2008. In a written summary of a decision made on Feb. 2, the parole board describes him as a “high-ranking member of (the Mafia in Montreal).”
While Del Balso obviously took orders from older members of the six member committee, in particular Vito Rizzuto’s father, Nicolo, he had considerable decision-making abilities on his own and controlled a satellite organization based out of a café in Laval.
