In an extraordinary joint operation Wednesday morning involving more than 100 members of Quebec police organizations, police arrested four people they describe as members of Montreal’s Italian Mafia.
The four — three men and one woman — are expected to be arraigned Thursday on charges related to four killings that took place in 2016, including those of Rizzuto crime family members Rocco Sollecito and Lorenzo Giordano .
“There is an assumption that these organized crime murders generally can’t be solved,” said Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Chief Inspector Guy Lapointe. “For us it sends a really clear message to organized crime members that these murders can’t just be committed without fear of being arrested.”
Lapointe said the killings are believed to have been committed to avenge the death of Salvatore Scoppa, a Mafia leader who was shot dead in May of this year at the Sheraton Hotel in Laval.
Arrested are: Jonathan Massari, 38 years old, Dominico Scarfo, 47, Guy Dion, 48, and Marie-Josée Viau, 44.
“These are all individuals that have been around the organization, running drug-trafficking rings,” Lapointe said. “For us it’s clear these individuals are related to the Italian Mafia. There is no question there.”
He said the four will be charged with planning and executing the murders of Giordano, gunned down in a parking lot in Laval in March of 2016, and Sollecito, shot in his car in Laval in May of 2016. The four are also suspected in the disappearance and presumed deaths of brothers Vincenzo and Giuseppe Falduto , who were last seen in Montreal in July of 2016.
Members of the SQ and the Montreal police participated in Wednesday’s operation, along with members of the organized crime squad ENRCO, which is composed of police officers from the SQ, the SPVM as well as the police forces of Quebec City, Laval and Lévis.
Police also executed eight search warrants in houses, one business and several cars in Montreal, Ste-Jude and Terrebonne. They seized six hand guns, 19 rifles, 200 boxes of ammunition, two silencers, 10 detonators, and other material that could be used to assemble explosives, as well as a motorcycle police believe was used in Sollecito’s killing. Lapointe said he expects to announce more results of the operation, dubbed Projet Préméditer, in the coming days.
This story will be updated.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
