Man killed in Laval had ties to Montreal Mafia
The 45-year-old man who was fatally shot in Laval Wednesday night had ties to leaders in the Montreal Mafia.
The victim of the shooting is Laval resident Steve Ovadia, according to the Sûreté du Québec. He was shot in the head in the parking lot of a strip mall on Samson Blvd. shortly after 8 p.m. Two men were seen fleeing the scene of the shooting, but no arrests have been made. The investigation has been turned over to the SQ because of Ovadia’s ties to organized crime.
They are looking for a four-door vehicle that is either pale grey or pale blue, and police dogs are arriving on scene to search for clues.
In recent years, police sources have told the Montreal Gazette that Ovadia had been observed meeting with alleged Mafia leaders like Stefano Sollecito and Leonardo Rizzuto while both men were under police surveillance. That included a meeting at a restaurant in September 2015 with Sollecito and Marco Campellone, a 24-year-old drug dealer who was involved in a conflict with rival dealers in eastern Montreal. Campellone was killed days after the meeting was held.
Ovadia’s name was also mentioned a few times during a bail hearing held for Andrea (Andrew) Scoppa, the alleged leader of a Calabrian clan within the Montreal Mafia, when the latter was arrested for drug trafficking last year. During the bail hearing, held over the course of two days in April 2017, a police investigator testified that Scoppa was secretly recorded on Sept. 15, 2016 as he spoke to an associate and commented on how Ovadia had been arrested that day.
The arrest and search warrants carried out that day were covered by various media and the fact that Ovadia was taken into custody appeared to spook Scoppa. He told his associate that he was considering fleeing Canada because of Ovadia’s arrest.
Scoppa was being investigated for having distributed kilograms of cocaine to lower-level drug dealers. He was charged in 2017, but for reasons that were never made clear in open court, on May 11 the prosecution suddenly announced it was dropping the case.
Ovadia’s arrest in September 2016 was part of an investigation of a small group of men who were alleged to have been trafficking in cocaine with Scoppa. While Ovadia was not charged in the case, another man who was arrested that day, a 62-year-old Laval resident, was charged with drug trafficking at the Laval courthouse at the same time Scoppa was charged in Montreal in 2017. The man is scheduled to have a trial in August.
Ovadia did not have a criminal record in Quebec, but in 2000, he agreed to follow the conditions set out in a peace bond after having been charged with threatening someone.
The homicide was carried out one day after John Mckenzie, 48, a man with alleged ties to the West End Gang, was shot in Laval. McKenzie survived the attempt on his life.