Friday, November 21, 2008

A restaurateur Ottawa behind bars

The Surete du Quebec (SQ), in collaboration with other police forces, has managed a major coup of net, early yesterday morning and arrested 51 people, including 21 of the Capital Region Federal, following a huge police operation to dismantle a network of drug traffickers to be linked to bikers.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Revenue Quebec, the Joint Regional Squad of Ottawa, the Gatineau police and the MRC des Collines helped the SQ in its investigation, which began in September 2006.

Giovanni Restaurant

The defendants must answer charges of drug trafficking, possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, of gangsterism, concealment and conspiracy. Among the accused, the SQ has set out to the collar of three alleged heads of the network, which would be linked to organized crime. Nino Pollastrini, 42 years Ottawa, who owns the restaurant Giovanni 360 Preston Street Ottawa, Michel Lecompte, 42 years of Gatineau, and Roke Vaillant, 39 years of Woodland, east of Peterborough, are suspected by SQ to be the head of the network.

MM. Pollastrini Vaillant and return to court next Tuesday for their investigation into release. Because the evidence is enormous in the case of Mr. Lecompte, it is the only one of 21 suspects to go before the judge Monday to allow lawyers to agree on a date for its investigation into release.

Some veterans of the underworld, and a former actor Omertà the show, Bruno Diquinzio, are among the accused. The police have set out to the collar of Raymond Sigouin, 67, and Robert Brunet, 62, former bank robber known recycled in drug trafficking, who for decades. "The proof is in the fifteen DVD documented several books, CDs and wiretaps," said Crown, Me Sylvain Petitclair.

In addition to the three alleged head of the network, fifteen other suspects paraded in turn before the judge Nicole Gibeault of the Superior Court of Quebec. Four of them were released on bail, for amounts ranging between 3 000 and 10 000 $. The fifteen defendants returned to court Tuesday for their next survey release.

Two individuals in the region, Gérard Rodier, 40 years of Gatineau, and Ribih Faisal Abdulla, 29 years Ottawa, are still being sought.

The coup was the net the third stage of an investigation begun in 2006 under the project Cruise. The first blow of the net transaction was made on April 31 last, when 120 police Gatineau, Ottawa, the RCMP and the SQ have carried out 17 searches in the municipalities of Gatineau, Ottawa, Val -des-Bois and Brownsburg-Chatham, near Lachute. Of money, drugs and luxury cars were seized.

The investigation alleges that the network connected to the Hells Angels, Mexico imported hundreds of kilos of cocaine a year. Drugs passing through the U.S. west coast, passed in Vancouver and was sent to Montreal by car.

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