Police and crime news from Laval

Martin C. Barry, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A 22-year-old man was taken to hospital in critical condition after a collision after which his vehicle got wedged under a parked truck early last Friday morning in eastern Laval.

According to the Laval Police Dept., the incident occurred around 3:15 a.m. on Dagenais Blvd. East, in the Vimont sector. For reasons police investigators have yet to determine, the driver hit a cube truck that was parked on the side of the boulevard.

As the victim’s vehicle was stuck under the rear end of the truck, firefighters had to free the driver who was alone in his car. Tow trucks were also called in to allow rescuers to access the vehicle.

The driver was taken to the hospital, and the police said the victim was out of danger later in the day following the crash. The Laval police force is continuing its investigation to try to shed light on the circumstances surrounding this accident.

Notre-Dame Blvd. blaze renders six homeless

Six people living in a triplex on Notre-Dame Boulevard in Chomedey are temporarily homeless following a January 6 fire in the building near the intersection of 100th Avenue.

It was just after 3:15 pm when the firefighters arrived on the scene, needing only around 45 minutes to declare the blaze under control.

Damages to the building were estimated at $150,000, with a further $40,000 for damage to furnishings and interior property.

One from Laval among four charged with cocaine trafficking

A 59-year-old man from Laval and three other suspects from Montreal and the North Shore are facing charges they conspired to import and produce cocaine using an ingenious scheme to try and deceive the Canada Border Services Agency.

In a statement issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Federal Policing Eastern Region division, the force says an investigation by the Airport and Federal Investigations Detachment began in December 2022, after the CBSA intercepted a package from Colombia containing 39 cardboard boxes soaked in cocaine.

“Laboratory analysis revealed that each box contained approximately 29 grams of the illicit substance, for a total of almost 1.3 kg,” according to the RCMP.

During the investigation, police dismantled a clandestine laboratory in a commercial building in Laval, presumably used for cocaine extraction purposes.

Two other commercial buildings were also searched.

Investigators seized several electronic devices, laboratory equipment and notes on how to extract the cocaine from the cardboard.

The suspects were identified by the RCMP as:

• Jean Bergeron, 59, from Laval
• Jonathan Gallotta, 41, from Mirabel
• Laurent-Alexandre Riverin, 31, from Montreal
• and Aéala Bizien, 30, from Boisbriand

They are scheduled to appear on January 29 at the Palais de Justice de Laval.

The charges they face include cocaine importation, possession for the purpose of trafficking and conspiracy.

Martin C. Barry, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Laval Police are seeking the public’s help to identify a suspect recently arrested for alleged sexual assaults committed against minors.

According to the LPD, Steve Haddad, age 35, was taken into custody to be processed following allegations of sex crimes committed over the past year.

The charges include child luring, sexual contact, incitement to sexual contact and sexual assault. The LPD believe there may be additional victims.

According to a statement issued last week by the LPD, Haddad, who was arraigned at the Laval Palais de Justice, made initial contact with adolescents through social media.

After gaining their trust, he allegedly would ask them to send him cell phone photos of themselves in sexual poses. The victims were in various regions of Quebec.

Anyone who believes they may have been one of the victims is being by the LPD to call the police Info-Line at 450 662-INFO (4636), or 9-1-1. The file number is LVL 240903-049.

Man sentenced to 30 months for smuggling fake citizen and resident IDs into Canada

A Terrebonne man charged nearly three years ago with attempted forgery and smuggling of counterfeit IDs from China into Canada was sentenced to 30 months in jail last month following a guilty plea at the Palais de Justice in Laval.

Jonghun Lee, 38, was attempting to smuggle more than 1,000 counterfeit pieces, including Canadian citizenship and resident status cards, as well as Alberta and British Columbia driver’s licenses.

The Canada Border Services Agency intercepted a courier parcel he was due to receive from China in January 2022, according to the CBSA.

The CBSA said that once opened at their Montréal–Mirabel International Airport office, the package was seen to contain 509 counterfeit blank Canada permanent residency cards and 506 counterfeit blank Alberta driver’s licences.

A later search of his home by CBSA agents led to the discovery of document-forging equipment, partly finished counterfeit IDs, and close to $140,000 in Canada and U.S. currency.

Also seized during the CBSA’s search operation were printing presses used to counterfeit money, as well as computers and cellphones.

The CBSA said Lee was also convicted of forging documents, including work permits, with the intention they would be used or acted upon by users as genuine.

In a published report Dec. 3 on alleged child-labour violations at a meat processing facility in the U.S. state of Iowa, the New York Times cited a former U.S. Labor Dept. division head who suggested the rising prevalence of false IDs is symptomatic of an underlying problem faced by employers.

“Individuals, including minors, obtaining jobs through their use of fraudulent identification documents,” said Paul DeCamp.

Laval man arrested near Trois-Rivières as suspect in banking card fraud scheme

A 44-year-old man from Laval is one of two individuals arrested in Louiseville 30 kilometres west of Trois Rivières on suspicion of perpetrating a banking card fraud scheme.

The Sûreté du Québec were tipped off by victims who said the man, identified as Pierre Lefebvre by the Trois-Rivières daily Le Nouvelliste, was making the rounds in villages and towns with an unidentified 62-year-old female accomplice from Saint-Jérôme.

It is alleged that up to 15 acts of fraud were committed by the pair since November 30.

Lefebvre was arraigned at the Trois-Rivières courthouse on a charge of fraud of less than $5,000, as well as theft less than $5,000.

He is also accused of being in possession of a counterfeit driver’s license.

Two Laval business owners convicted of tax evasion

Two business owners from Laval were recently sentenced to pay more than a half-million dollars in fines after being found guilty of evading payment of taxes owed to Revenu Québec, the province’s tax collection agency.

Fadi Khoury and Maria Poroshina were found liable for more than $500,641 in unpaid tax, with Khoury receiving an additional 12-month prison sentence.

Both ran an employment agency for factory workers. Each will have to pay more than $250,000.

The court found that Poroshina was acting as a front for Khoury who ran a business under a numbered company name.

She acknowledged having taken steps to avoid paying federal and provincial sales tax on products and services, while he admitted filing tax forms containing false or misleading information with federal and provincial tax authorities.

Martin C. Barry, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The City of Laval was among six municipalities in Quebec and Ontario where police executed warrants and led concerted raids last week in order to arrest suspects in a fraud ring that targeted senior citizens.

In all, five people were taken into custody in the operation involving 22 warrants executed in Laval, Sherbrooke, Brossard, St-Lin-des-Laurentides, Sainte-Thérèse and Toronto.

According to police, the suspects made up to 140,000 phone calls to set up seniors for scams which finally became the subject of a police investigation beginning in November 2023.

Suspect from Laval among three arrested for alleged firearms trafficking

A suspect from Laval was one of three individuals arrested last week by the Montreal Police in conjunction with alleged firearms trafficking and illegal firearms possession.

The three, who are 18, 20 and 23 years of age respectively, were arraigned at the Palais de Justice in Montreal.

According to a statement issued by the Montreal Police, warrants were executed in Laval, the Montreal borough of Mercier-Hochelaga and in Saint-Colomban in the lower Laurentians.

Six handguns were confiscated, as were an unspecified amount of ammunition and other incriminating evidence, according to the Montreal Police.

Former Laval department manager guilty of raping sleeping woman

A former Laval city department manager was found guilty of sexual assault recently after failing to obtain the consent of a woman with whom he had just engaged in sexual activity, but who was unable to consent again after she fell asleep.

According to testimony rendered during the trial at the Palais de Justice de Laval, the two met through the online social media website Tinder.

Judge Serge Cimon ruled that Julien Leclerc, 39, who no longer works for the City of Laval’s tree maintenance division, failed to obtain the woman’s consent as she was asleep when Leclerc tried to have sex with her in the fall of 2022 as she slumbered at his home.

Although Leclerc and the woman, whose identity can’t be revealed, initially appeared to get along well, and she agreed to go to his home where she willingly had sex, she testified that when he tried a second time, she refused and he relented.

However, later in the evening, according to her testimony, he tried again. On awaking, she maintained, he was raping her because she didn’t give her consent.

She reported the incident to a friend who works with the Sûreté du Québec and later filed a formal criminal complaint. Leclerc hasn’t worked for the City of Laval since late 2022 after he resigned.

Recent Laval fire calls

Although it’s been empty for nearly a year following an arson attack, the remains of the Al Sultan Restaurant on Curé Labelle Blvd. in Chomedey went up in flames again on Oct. 4, with arson again suspected. The Laval Police have opened yet another investigation.

A few weeks earlier, on Saturday Sept. 28, a house in the upscale Île Roussin neighbourhood in Laval-sur-le-Lac also went up in flames, with Laval Fire Dept. firefighters calling in a code 10-13, signifying a third necessary alarm.

The Laval Police were called in to open an investigation as the LFD initially suspected arson. The home’s fire alarm system alerted 9-1-1.

Upon arrival, LFD firefighters could see flames shooting out of windows on the first floor, although they also determined that no one was home.

Damage has been estimated at $500,000 on a residential building valued at $2,630,000, with an additional $300,000 in damages to property and materials inside the dwelling. Two firefighters sustained injuries which were relatively minor.