Sam Fasulo, 37, died Sunday after being shot several times while he was driving in a sports utility vehicle in Montreal North

Sam Fasulo, 37, died Sunday after being shot several times while he was driving in a sports utility vehicle in Montreal North on Friday afternoon. No arrests have been made in the shooting and investigators are trying to track down a pale coloured sports utility vehicle that is believed to have been used in the homicide. Several shots were fired into Fasulo’s Jeep. Montreal police Constable Laurent Gingras said investigators have little in terms of a description of a white man who witnesses saw inside the suspect vehicle before it sped away. Fasulo only recently finished serving a four-year sentence he received in 2004 for his leading role in a major drug trafficking ring that sold crack cocaine and heroin out of Italian cafés in St. Leonard and St. Michel. When police carried out search warrants in the 2003 operation dubbed Project Espresso they seized a large quantity of drugs but also uncovered a cache of weapons that included automatic and semi-automatic firearms.
According to National Parole Board decision prepared when he was granted a full release in 2005, Fasulo was considered the leader of the highly organized drug trafficking ring that brought in $100,000 a week. The Montreal police had evidence it had operated quietly for years. It was busted after residents who lived near the cafés began complaining that the drugs sold out of the cafés brought problems like prostitution and used syringes to their neighbourhoods. One of the parole decisions notes “(A) police report also indicates a tie to traditional Italian organized crime, which (Fasulo denied).” Despite the denial, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation Project Colisée uncovered links Fasulo had with Francesco Arcadi, the mob boss with the Rizzuto Clan. In 2002, Arcadi was recorded giving orders to Fasulo to resolve a problem after a drug dealer with ties to the mob was roughed up inside a Montreal bar. Arcadi was recorded telling Fasulo to go immediately to the bar but to not start punching right away. Instead, Fasulo was told, their adversary should only get a warning. “You tell him: ” Don’t you touch this fellow or I will slit your throat like a goat,” Arcadi told Fasulo.
Subsequent wiretapped conversations suggested Fasulo solved Arcadi’s problem in under an hour. Arcadi, 55, is currently serving a 15-year prison term he received in October after pleading guilty to conspiracy and gangsterism charges filed against him in Project Colisée.

Read more...

Giovanni Marra is one of two reputed members of the Montreal Mafia who have seen their parole revoked

Last year, Gallo, 62, serving a life sentence for taking part in a 1973 murder, halted his parole hearing because he was unwilling to discuss the evidence - which includes videotapes of him bringing large quantities of cash to Mafia leaders at their hangout in St. Léonard - with the possibility of new charges hanging over his head.In the 1980s and 1990s, Giovanni Marra helped Montreal mob boss Frank Cotroni move a lot of cocaine. Then after being released on parole in 2001 while serving a 14-year prison term for drug trafficking, Marra appeared to go on the straight and narrow and became a leading salesman at a car dealership.But it is his alleged penchant for selling the former that has seen Marra returned to a federal penitentiary where he was turned down for a new chance at parole last week.
According to a summary of the National Parole Board decision, the RCMP suspects Marra was again acting as a middleman in a conspiracy to import and traffic in cocaine.Marra, 55, is one of two reputed members of the Montreal Mafia who have seen their parole revoked because of evidence gathered during Projet Colisée, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation that ended in 2006 with about 90 arrests.Both Marra and Moreno Gallo have yet to be charged in connection with Projet Colisée. The evidence mostly involves them associating with known criminals, a violation of conditions they agreed to when released.Marra went through with his hearing on Thursday and told the two parole commissioners who heard his case that the meetings he had with other known criminals while out on parole were "innocent get-togethers." The parole board simply didn't believe him.Marra has two previous convictions for drug trafficking besides the sentence he is currently serving. In 1978, he received his first conviction and was sentenced to three years in a case heard in the United States.Four years later, he was arrested in Montreal after Réal Simard, a hitman for Cotroni, turned informant and told police he and Marra sold a kilo of cocaine together.In 1996, Marra and Cotroni, who died of brain cancer in 2004 at 72, were arrested in connection with a plot to smuggle 180 kilograms of cocaine into Canada. Marra quickly pleaded guilty in the case, but still received a stiff 14-year prison term because he was the key intermediary between the Colombian suppliers and Cotroni.Marra was released on parole five years later after swearing he had severed his ties to the Mafia and doing volunteer work at a shelter for abused women. After being released, he complained for years that one of his conditions - forbidding him from visiting bars - was limiting his ability to sell cars. The parole board finally agreed to modify the condition in 2006.Investigators now believe Marra used the opportunity to meet with other mobsters in bars.

Read more...

Gaétan Comeau parole revoked

Gaétan Comeau, 60, part of the gang's Montreal chapter, was once described by police as having possible links to the 1995 car bombing that killed 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers, an innocent victim of the biker gang war.
In 2003, he was arrested along with 10 others in Project Apache, a police investigation into a drug trafficking network that operated out of the city's Rosemont and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve districts.
On Dec. 17, 2003, Comeau pleaded guilty to charges related to his leading role in the network and was sentenced to a prison term of five years and two months. Last summer, after reaching the two-thirds mark of his sentence, he qualified for statutory release.In January, he was arrested for violating his release and was returned to prison after Montreal police alleged he was linked to a series of violent incidents in which independent tow-truck drivers in Montreal received threats, vandalism and assaults.The investigation reportedly centred on a tow-truck company based on 12th Ave. in Rosemont. According to provincial business records, the garage in Rosemont is owned by one of Comeau's relatives, who was also convicted and sentenced for taking part in the same drug trafficking network.
The written summary of the National Parole Board's decision to revoke his parole indicates Comeau was unwilling to tolerate competition."According to information from the police, you were related to events of violence and intimidation linked to a fight over territory to towing vehicles on the Montreal Island," it said. "The police also saw you in the company of individuals with criminal records. The parole board considers this information to be reliable and convincing."Comeau renounced his right to a parole hearing and did not respond to the allegations. The evidence that he had associated with criminals during his release was enough to revoke his release.
The two parole commissioners who made the decision also barred Comeau from setting foot on the island of Montreal if he is released again before his sentence ends in February.Despite the evidence presented to the parole board, neither Comeau nor the relative who owns the towing company has been charged with any crimes related to the investigation.A Montreal police spokesperson was unable to say whether any arrests have been made in the investigation.

Read more...

Crack dealers alleged to have ties to the Hells Angels

At least 20 people are to be charged in court as a result of a police crackdown on a downtown drug trafficking network alleged to have ties to the Hells Angels.
The people were arrested yesterday after Operation Surface, a seven-month-long investigation into crack dealers who operated on major streets like St. Hubert St. and St. Laurent Blvd. Twenty-four people were sought on arrest warrants when Montreal police officers began searching homes in LaSalle and Lachine and tourist-room hotels where clients bought and used drugs.
"We have put an end to the operations of a trafficking network of people who claimed to be affiliated with the Hells Angels," said Commander Alain Simoneau, head of neighbourhood Station 21.Simoneau said the investigation involved work on two fronts: Uniformed officers from Station 21 maintained a regular presence on streets like St. Hubert to monitor dealers, while investigators from the drug and morality squad probed drug sales in hotels on the Main."Eventually it became clear the same network was operating in both areas," Simoneau said.
During the investigation, the Montreal police persuaded the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux to close a bar on St. Hubert St., believing dealers were operating there.The Bar du Quartier saw its licence suspended last month. Police said the bar was a public danger because members of rival organized crime groups were clashing inside it. Several sources informed the police the bar was controlled by the Hells Angels.Police also tied other violence along the street to dealing at the bar.Police officers seized more than $75,000 worth of drugs yesterday, including more than 2,500 doses of crack cocaine. They also seized $25,000.Those arrested face charges of trafficking and conspiracy

Read more...