Canada - Crown seeks five-year sentence for drug kingpin

[S.J.B.]

Crown seeks five-year sentence for drug kingpin
Paul Cherry
Montreal Gazette
November 18th, 2014

A man who was the head of a network of drug runners the Montreal police described as an “emerging force” within the Montreal Mafia apologized for the harm he caused society in the hopes of avoiding being sent to a federal penitentiary.

“I am sorry for my actions,” said Tomasso Paparelli, 32, as his hearing before Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Boyer neared its end Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse. “I caused harm to people. I caused harm to society and I caused harm to my own family. This was my first run-in with the law. It will be my last run-in with the law.”

Boyer will decide on Paparelli’s sentence on Friday. Prosecutor Éric Poudrier described Paparelli as the “summit of the chain” of more than 20 people arrested in May 2013 in Project Argot, a two-year investigation by Montreal police. Poudrier suggested a five-year overall prison term would serve to dissuade others from doing the same.

The network Paparelli ran — from an apartment building on Joseph Renaud Blvd. in Anjou that served as his office — sold every illegal drug available in east-end Montreal, except for heroin, Poudrier noted. A camera Montreal police secretly installed inside the apartment recorded everything Paparelli did and revealed he acted as purchaser, controlled couriers and handled the accounting. The police estimate the group made more than $230,000 during one seven-month span of the investigation.

Read the full story here.

 

[ro4eva]

They can do anything imaginable to this guy as a form of punishment - it will never have a long term effect on the supply of whatever drugs he and his associates was dealing.

Maybe that's law enforcement's doing as well, and to keep up appearances they arrest and seize as required, but never to the point of cutting off supply for a prolonged period, because after all, there's no drug money to be made if the dealers aren't dealing.

Wouldn't it be great if somehow, someone was able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the DEA are - and have long been - in cahoots with organized crime? That would be a great day for conspiracy theorists, and of course the recreational drug using minority.

 

[my3rdeye]

No one at the top of the pyramid ever gets popped in Quebec.

 

[S.J.B.]

No one at the top of the pyramid ever gets popped in Quebec.

Mom and Vito Rizzuto both got popped, and the pyramid doesn't go any higher than that. Quebec cops are probably the most efficient in the country, at this point, at dismantling organized criminal organizations.