A fifty-year-old accused of having hidden 12 kg of cocaine at his home and who tried to blame his brother whom he was sheltering finally received five years in prison.
• Read also: Traffickers capable of selling significant quantities of cocaine plead guilty as a whole
Serge Lavoie, 53, had an “important and essential role” in a drug distribution network linked to the Hells Angels dismantled in 2020, judge Kathlyn Gauthier recently recalled while pronouncing his sentence at the Laval courthouse.
Lavoie had become a subject of interest a month earlier as part of Operation Renewal, led by the City of Montreal Police Department. This is because his brother Eric, whom he hosted in his residence in Laval, was engaged in drug trafficking.
Search
A search then took place in the luxurious residence that Serge Lavoie was renting in cash and whose property value was close to $1 million.
12 kg of cocaine, equipment used for cutting, packaging and transporting this drug, as well as $140,000 in a recycling bag were then seized in the common rooms.
Twelve of the 20 kg of cocaine seized during Operation Renewal were found in the house of brothers Serge and Eric Lavoie.
Photo courtesy, SPVM
A money counting machine, an air gun, a few methamphetamine tablets and $32,000 were also found in Serge Lavoie’s room.
If the accused had no history in similar matters, Judge Gauthier recalled that “trafficking networks are increasingly calling on people who are not or only minimally criminalized, thus not attracting the attention of the police.
The 50-year-old was arrested at the scene. And during his transport to the police station, he told the officers: “I am cleanI have nothing to reproach myself for, I know about my brother.”
He had maintained that the money found in the house came from his moving company, but that the other items “were there without his knowledge and that his brother was probably responsible”.
In total, $800,000 was seized by the SPVM during Operation Renouveau.
Photo courtesy, SPVM
“Even if that had been the case, Mr. Lavoie’s moral responsibility would not necessarily be diminished,” recalled Judge Gauthier. Indeed, the court would be tempted not to send a message to potential traffickers that “if they wear blinders”, they will be sentenced to a less severe sentence.”
Significant sentence
The magistrate therefore wanted to impose the sentence suggested by the Crown, rather than the three years requested by the defense.
The head of the network, Jonathan Papillon, was sentenced to the same sentence last January.
Serge Lavoie appealed his conviction and was released in the final days while awaiting further proceedings.
His brother Eric was finally arrested last March, almost three years after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He quickly pleaded guilty to all charges against him and also received five years in the penitentiary.
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