Murders within Organized Crime | The long awaited police strike is intensifying

A year and a half after Frédérick Silva began cooperating with police, the ex-assailant’s revelations in Montreal that organized crime, which has been very active for years, resulted in a major operation this week.

On Wednesday and Thursday morning, investigators from the Major Crimes and Organized Crime Unit of the Montreal Police Department and their colleagues from the Crimes Against the Person of the Sûreté du Québec conducted a dozen searches in Laval, Rosemère, Mirabel, Notre-Dame. In Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot, Vaudreuil-Dorion and the boroughs of Anjou, Lachine and Montreal-Nord in Montreal, these two police forces were announced in a press release.

The police announcement indicated that the operation was aimed at clarifying several murders within organized crime from the mid-1990s to the present day, some of which resulted in false identification.

Police did not say whether the searches in recent days were based on information provided by Frédérick Silva over the past 18 months, but everything points to this being the first major phase of a major joint investigation feared by Montreal’s criminal community. long time.

Frédéric Silva, an employee of the Sicilian clan of the Montreal Mafia and a contractor for other factions of organized crime, turned in his jacket in the summer of 2022. Organized crime, committed in 2018.

According to our information, the information he disclosed to the investigators of the two police forces will help clear sixty murders and attempted murders.

Key players were targeted

According to our information, among the people visited by the police on Wednesday and Thursday, we find Pietro D’Adamo and Vito Salvaggio, who the police consider to be the two main players of the mafia, and the leader of the gang, Jean-Philippe Celestin.

The right arm of Gregory Woolley, who was murdered in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on November 17, was present at his burial last weekend.

Celestine has several criminal histories. In 2017, he was sentenced to 70 months in prison for gang, conspiracy, possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, cocaine trafficking and money laundering conspiracy.

Pietro D’Adamo, an associate of the Montreal mafia’s Sicilian clan, was sentenced to eight years in prison following a plot to import 1,300 kilograms of cocaine uncovered during the Colici investigation, which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police dismantled in 2006.

As for Vito Salvaggio, he is considered by the police to be one of the decision-makers of the Sicilian clan of the Montreal mafia.

In the early 2000s, as part of an investigation known as Océan, he was observed on two occasions going to a Hell’s Angels-controlled cash vault on rue Beaubien, where he allegedly handed out sums totaling 2, 5 million. He was later sentenced to four years in prison for drug importation and trafficking.

Last Friday, D’Adamo and Salvaggio were escorted by police to the Loreto Funeral Complex, where Gregory Woolley’s remains were on display.

Killed by mistake

This week’s searches are being carried out as part of multiple homicide investigations, three of which involved mistaken identities, police asserted in their press release.

First, the murder of Domenico Facchini, who was shot dead on December 21, 2012, in a cafe on Boulevard Provencher, Domenica-In. Already at the time, La Presse indicated that the attack may have targeted Giuseppe De Vito, a rebel chef. A clan member who participated in an attempted coup against the Rizzutos between 2009 and 2011. Di Vito frequented the place, as did his associate Alessandro Sucabane – who died of cyanide poisoning in prison the following year.

In the second murder, 32-year-old Lida Fon was killed in her car in August 2012 when she entered the garage of her apartment in Laval. M.^me Fone was an associate of Ziad Ziad, a man police had ties to Lebanese organized crime and, according to investigators, was the person targeted that evening.

Finally, 3^e The victim’s alleged wrongful death is the June 2018 killing of Nicolas Lavoie-Cloutier, an 18-year-old man who was shot on a street in Terrebonne.

Even at the time, his parents said they did not believe their son was the target.

Last July, SPVM investigators raided the house in Plainville of Stefano Sollecito, co-head of the Sicilian clan built around the revelations of Frederick Silva, as part of this major investigation into the Alliance.

In September, as part of this joint investigation, SQ investigators attempted to locate the remains of the former Jean Raymond Claude at Carillon Bay in Saint-André-d’Argenteuil, Laurentians. A gang member who disappeared in 2015.

But this week’s activity is significant and suggests other strikes to come.

In collaboration with Mesa Fera, Pres

Contact Daniel Renaud at 514 285-7000, ext. Dial 4918 Write to [email protected] or mail Pres.