Prolific drug smuggler Charron sentenced to five years in jail
Notorious organized crime figure Alain Charron has been sentenced to a five-year prison term for his efforts, along with men tied to the West End Gang, to bring three large shipments of hashish into Canada eight years ago.
Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer delivered the sentence at the Montreal courthouse on Monday. Federal prosecutor Carly Norris had recommended a sevenyear prison term partly based on Charron’s criminal record.
Charron’s defence team, which included lawyers Debora De Thomasis and Christina Nedelcu, had recommended a sentence he could serve in the community.
In 2005, while serving a six-year sentence for his role in what was at the time the biggest hashish seizure in Canada, Charron told the Parole Board of Canada he was fed up with organized crime. But during Charron’s 2012 bail hearing in the case he was sentenced for on Monday, François Martin, the lead investigator in Project Celsius, revealed that Charron was still a man adept at dealing with almost all of the major organized crime groups based in Montreal. Evidence from the bail hearing could not be reported on due to a publication ban, which was lifted when Charron was recently convicted by a jury on conspiracy charges.
Evidence of the circles Charron moved in was plentiful while he was under surveillance in Project Celsius — in particular on Jan. 23, 2012. At a food court in the Eaton Centre early that day, he met a West Island resident who had been convicted of being part of two major hashish smuggling conspiracies.
Later, Charron was seen at another downtown shopping centre with a 46-year-old longtime associate of the Hells Angels in Montreal.
He moved on from that meeting to a dinner, at Wienstein and Gavino’s on Crescent St., with Brian Forget, 50, a member of the West End Gang who was one of Charron’s accomplices in the three shipments investigated during Project Celsius. Forget, who is still serving a fiveyear sentence he received in 2013, was accompanied by two other men for the meeting. One was Jamie Laramee, 37, another member of the West End Gang who was murdered along with his brother Cody, 25, at a bar in LaSalle on July 1, 2013.
The other man who dined with Charron, Forget and Laramee that evening was Andrew Griffin, 39, a LaSalle resident who was almost killed when he was shot as he left an indoor pool in LaSalle in 2015
During the investigation, Martin said, Forget was recorded making calls to Antonio (Tony) Volpato. Volpato, 73, was described as a high-ranking member of the Rizzuto organization when he was convicted more than two decades ago of plotting to smuggle 180 kilograms of cocaine into Canada. Martin said when Forget set up a meeting with Volpato, he always made sure to mention Charron would be with him.
In 2011, Charron contacted Raynald Desjardins, 64, an influential leader in the Montreal Mafia, at least six times by phone and met with him in person a few times while Desjardins was involved in a tense showdown with Mafioso Salvatore Montagna over who would take control of the Mafia. That included a meeting Charron and Desjardins had on Nov. 21, 2011, three days before Montagna was murdered. Desjardins is serving a sentence for conspiring to kill Montagna.
Earlier that same month, Charron was seen meeting with Klifford Hercule, 44, and Guy Robert Claude, 39. Martin described both men as members of a street gang called The Loyalty. A few weeks after the meeting, on Dec. 6, 2011, Hercule was shot and injured in a bizarre incident on the South Shore that had nothing to do with Charron. Claude has a criminal record that includes a manslaughter conviction in the 2002 death of David Joseph during a conflict between street gangs.
Another meeting Charron held that caught the attention of investigators who worked on Project Celsius was a get-together in May 2011 with Adrien Dubois, the youngest of a gang of nine brothers who controlled rackets in western Montreal decades ago. In the early 1980s, a hit man who had worked for the Dubois Gang alleged Charron had taken part in the murders of four people for the gang. Charron was tried on charges related to three of the homicides. He was acquitted in 1984 in one case heard in Montreal involving two of the homicides. A stay of proceedings was placed on the other case, which was heard in Quebec City in 1990.
Norris said she was satisfied with Cournoyer’s decision given the jury acquitted Charron on a specific drug-smuggling charge and couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on two others.
Charron’s lawyers have filed an appeal of the verdict and are expected to request that Charron not begin serving his sentence until a decision on the appeal is made.