Six months before he was shot and killed, Frantz Louis participated in a high-level meeting between major players in Montreal organized crime, in broad daylight, in a park in a quiet residential area of Laval.
This is what an organized crime specialist from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) told Wednesday at the jury trial of Emanuell Roberts Hunte and Andrew Thomas Labrèche, which opened a while ago. two weeks, for the first degree murder of Louis, 49, committed on November 19, 2020 in the Villeray district of Montreal.
Frantz Louis was described by Detective Sergeant Francis Derome as an individual “known to the police for several years and part of the daily news of organized crime” in the greater Montreal area.
The investigator said in particular that on May 6, 2020 – when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its height –, in the middle of the day, Louis presented himself in the Parc des Coccinelles, boulevard Chomedey, at the corner of boulevard Perron, in Laval, with Atna Onha, nicknamed 2-Pac.
In the small park enclosed in a quiet residential area, where there are structures for children, water games and a basketball court, the two men met three other individuals: Gilles Lambert and François Vachon, members of the Hells Angels, and Joseph Chamai, who the witness described as being linked to Lebanese organized crime.
“This encounter worried the police officers at the spinning mill, because in addition to the five men present, there were at least seven or eight individuals walking around the park and keeping watch. By their behavior, they seemed armed. When there are meetings of members of the Hells Angels, there are almost always guards. It worried us, in broad daylight, in a residential area,” Francis Derome said.
“These are people at the highest level of organized crime. Onha is one of the most important players in organized crime today. He met Frantz Louis a few times during the Abuse investigation, in which Louis was targeted, the detective sergeant added.
At the time he was killed in November 2020, Louis was indeed accused, along with three accomplices, in an extortion case.
“He was part of an organization that lent to people in difficulty and that tried, by threat, to maintain payments as long as possible at criminal interest rates,” the witness summarized.
Louis also had a history of threats that dated back to 1991, and had been the subject of five violence, firearms and drug trafficking cases opened between 1992 and 2007.
“Frantz Louis was one of the names I heard regularly for years. I saw him grow up in organized crime,” Francis Derome said.
The trial, presided over by Superior Court Judge Alexandre Boucher, continues on Thursday.
The prosecution is represented by Me Claude Berlinguette-Auger and Me Philippe Vallières-Roland, while the defense is provided by Me Morgane Laloum, Me Matthew Shadley, Me Mathieu Rondeau-Poissant and Me Philippe Knerr.
