Fentanyl dealer not laughing now

Randall Stanley Budd, 31, was arrested in Chilliwack on March 30, 2022 after the execution of a search warrant following a seizure of illegal drugs. Cops found methamphetamine, fentanyl and crack cocaine.

4 homes seized in Quebec after GHB bust

Homes of Sébastien Turcotte, 43, Jean-Philippe Robitaille, 44, and Éric Matte, 42, are subject to orders to restrain proceeds of crime after the men were pinned last week. They are suspected of orchestrating the largest GHB trafficking network in Quebec, from 2014 to 2022. They face charges of gangsterism, production, possession, transportation and trafficking of narcotics. They produced GHB with a resale value of $280m to $860m.

Sébastien Turcotte

Jean-Philippe Robitaille

After trafficking GHB under the radar for years, the three would have run to their own doom by being less vigilant, according to court documents. The investigation began during a meeting in a café between Stéphane Plouffe, an influential member of the Hells Angels, and a suspected cocaine dealer, who then crossed paths with the trio. In April 2022, the network was caught when Turcotte met a narcotics buyer who was already under police surveillance. Turcotte had 400 liters of GHB.

Éric Matte

Top MS-13 bosses nailed

On Feb. 22, Mexican authorities located Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, 47, aka Vampiro de Monserrat Criminales; Walter Yovani Hernandez-Rivera, 29, aka Baxter de Park View and Bastard de Park View; and Marlon Antonio Menjivar-Portillo, 47, aka Rojo de Park View, and expelled them from Mexico via the United States. The three Salvadorans are a part of the upper leadership of MS-13.

UK mugshots that motivated attention

An unnamed woman who was arrested for child endangerment sparked a response as people were enamored despite her offence.

Cops wanted Robert Rimmer on drug charges. His mug attracted comments from both men and women ready to hide him under their bed.

Kat Todd's mugshot went viral. She walked out of a Louis Vuitton shop with a $1,500 item without paying.

Burglar Jonathan Cahill impressed fans, who dubbed him the 'fit felon'.

Shaun Aver was wanted, but people joked he was guilty of crimes against fashion.

Burglar Martin McDonagh attracted comments for his condition.

HA boss Joseph Lancia - 1 year in big house down, 4 to go

HA Rhode Island boss Joseph Lancia marked the first anniversary of his five year prison sentence for a 2019 shooting involving a former prospect. Lancia was sentenced in Feb 2022 to 15 years in prison with five to serve and the remainder suspended with probation. The R.I. Supreme Court denied HA Joseph Lancia’s request for judges to weigh in on a judge's decision not to recuse herself from presiding over his case because her husband is a cop. Lancia, 30, fired a gun at a truck driven by former prospect Richard Starnino. Lancia argued for the judge's recusal. Prosecutors called Lancia’s request “absurd and condescending.”

Lancia was shot down twice to have his judge recuse herself. Lancia appealed to the state Supreme Court and lost. He dodged assault charges after a cop witnessed him in a bar fight while he was out on bail.

See ----->Hells Angels boss Lancia tastes freedom

Canadian tasked with stripping 645kg of MDMA out of BBQs - 10 years

Luke Humphries, 33, was tasked with unpacking 346 packages of MDMA hidden in 199 barbecues in a warehouse in south-west Sydney in October 2019. But only hours into the work, he called a friend, saying he was exhausted. He had completed 13.

The phone call was recorded by the Australian Federal Police. The AFP was already aware of the shipment, intercepting the barbecues when they arrived in Australia and replacing the MDMA packages with a substance that looked like the illicit drug. Cops then released the shipment. Humphries pleaded guilty to attempting to traffic a commercial quantity of MDMA and was sentenced on August 11th to a decade in jail. He is appealing.

First 2000 inmates moved to El Salvador's new mega prison

The Center for the Confinement of Terrorism is touted as the largest mega-prison in the Americas.

President Nayib Bukele, who declared a war on drugs said; "This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, all mixed, unable to do any further harm to the population." Capacity is 40,000.

Faiz Rehman a 'charity worker' drug kingpin = 15 years

Liverpool's Faiz Rehman, 37 was busted through Encrochat. Encrochat was cracked by Dutch and French cops on June 13, 2020. Between March and June 2020, Rehman supplied 55kg of cocaine - 5kg per week - with a wholesale price of £39,000 per kg, 50kg of heroin and 295kg of cannabis. Total value of the drugs was £4,227,000. In other messages, Rehman bragged about being able to sell 40kg to 50kg of heroin a month. Despite having no income Rehman led a luxurious lifestyle with designer clothes, cars and high end watches. In 2010 he was busted with his brother for weapons. A Mac 10 sub machine gun, a sawn-off shotgun, and ‘dumdum’ bullets were seized.

Faiz Rehman, then 25, bought 8 years in jail.

Fentanyl dealer Leslie John McCulloch - revisited

Kelowna drug trafficker Leslie John McCulloch has been granted full parole. His conditions will need to be followed to maintain his freedom. Any breach will be an 'undue risk to society'. McCulloch's criminal record dates back 25 years and he’s repeatedly flouted his conditions. McCulloch had his day parole revoked due to “deception, manipulation and outright lies”. He had been granted parole after only 2 years into his sentence. Sentence was eight years, 58 days for drug production and trafficking in July 2019.

He remained caged after his second tearful request for early parole was denied. In it's decision, the Parole Board screwed McCulloch up. The asthmatic is actually safer from COVID-19 inside Abbotsford's Matsqui Institution, as there are no cases of the virus at the prison. Leslie John McCulloch will remain in jail where he belongs, in spite of his many large fears of COVID-19. McCulloch was busted making acetylfentanyl pills. Acetylfentanyl is an analogue of fentanyl. McCulloch was on parole for cocaine trafficking when he was arrested in 2016. The Parole Board labelled McCulloch a “middleman who transported drugs for the Hells Angels” in 2013. The fate of his girlfriend, Rebekka Rae White is unknown. McCulloch ran away from a plea deal for her role in the operation.

McCulloch taunted cops and the crown while on the run, sending e-mails. One year into his eight-year sentence, McCulloch accused Canada's attorney general of acting too slowly to hear his application for 'exceptional parole'. McCulloch was sentenced in Jan 2019 after skipping bail on charges of running a fentanyl drug lab while he was on parole for peddling cocaine. McCulloch ties to the Kelowna Hells Angels exceed 2 decades.

See ----->“If I don't want to be found, I won't be found" - fentanyl dealer Leslie McCulloch
See ----->Fentanyl dealer McCulloch pulls 10 years

Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road

He is jailed at USP Tucson.

The Silk Road was the first dark web marketplace, an online market for anonymously buying and selling illegal products and services with bitcoin. Ross Ulbricht created The Silk Road in 2011 and ran it until 2013 when the FBI shut him down. Ulbricht, 'Dread Pirate Roberts' was caught logged into the site from a public library. He was arrested and charged with money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and attempted murder to silence those who threatened to unmask him. Ulbricht turned down a plea deal offering a 10-year sentence. He was convicted and handed five sentences, including two life sentences without parole, and fined $183m.

People bought and sold a wide range of goods and services on the Silk Road but by 2013 some 70% of the purchases were drugs. Ross Ulbricht is infamous as the internet’s first drug lord. Ulbricht's appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S Supreme Court in 2018 were unsuccessful. In a twist, a hacker stole thousands of bitcoins from Silk Road and hid them away. It took cops years to find the perpetrator. In 2012, James Zhong exploited a flaw in the website's payment system. The 50,676 bitcoin seized was worth $3.36 billion at one point. Zhong pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was scheduled to be sentenced on February 22, 2023. See ----->DoJ announce $3.36b cryptocurrency seizure, conviction

Montreal cops fingered in mafia corruption probe

Two Montreal cops are suspected of warning the manager of a bar linked to the mafia of a bust. Gelato café, located in Little Italy, is controlled by the Lopez family of the Montreal mafia. The clan controls several licensed establishments in north Montreal. Boss is Serafino 'Sergio Lopez' Oliverio. He was the target of an attempted hit Nov 2021.

A party involving a hundred people celebrating the owner's anniversary was in progress before the intended raid. An agent from PDQ 35 noticed the presence of a patrol car from PDQ 27, with two cops on board, parked in front of the Gelato. The two cops from PDQ 27 were not in their area. No evidence was found of a stolen car call they said they received. 28 minutes later the party at Gelato café was over and people were leaving as quickly as possible.

Court documents reveal that in July 2021, a cop saw one of the two officers twice at the Gelato cafe when he was off duty. The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions elected not to lay charges, however the SPVM confirms it's Internal Affairs Department will conduct a disciplinary review.

Steven Sarti - 'You wish you had more time to redeem yourself'

Steven Sarti died Oct. 1, 2022.

Steven Sarti was sentenced to 71 months in prison in May 2021 for conspiring to traffic cocaine and meth from Montreal to Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia RCMP arrested Sarti in 2018 as part of what police dubbed 'Operation Hackberry'. The probe mainly concerned Jeffrey Colegrove, 56, a man with ties to Montreal’s West End Gang. The parole board released Sarti early last fall as he had a terminal illness and keeping him behind bars would have constituted undue hardship. Sarti suffered from a clinical condition that paralyzed his lower limbs and made it impossible to use his right hand. He was given 3 months to live and didn't make that. In 2012, Sarti pleaded guilty for smuggling nearly $1b worth of cannabis into America from Quebec. The judge sentenced him to 97 months in prison.

At the time of his parole hearing, Sarti was only expected to live between a few weeks to months. As he contemplated his death, Sarti told the parole board “You wish you had more time to ‘redeem’ yourself … and be able to demonstrate to those around you the ‘good’ person that you are really.” Doctors confirmed his incurable diagnosis. Sarti wasn’t likely to present much of a risk to reoffend in his condition the parole board concluded.

8 busted in Quebec drug probe tied to HA Serge Lebrasseur

Eight people were arrested as part of a drug trafficking investigation that involved search warrants carried out two years ago at the home of full patch Serge Lebrasseur. Searches led to the seizure of more than $200k in cash, various drugs, and firearms. Lebrasseur was in the news for buying a total of 5 months in prison after intimidated a security guard near the parking lot of the Sorel-Tracy–Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola ferry in June 2019. He was released on conditions, including "not to refer directly or indirectly to the victim on any social media whatsoever".

“It will be settled ah, ah, ah. I found the one who blocked me on the Sorel-Tracy ferry ha, ha, ha”.

He and his biker friends thought his subsequent facebook post was hilarious. The judge wasn't impressed and added 30 days.

Lebrasseur testified he did nothing wrong. The judge found his testimony not credible or reliable.

Lebrasseur, 59, had a problem waiting in line with peons for a ferry. Wearing his colours, Lebrasseur initiated a heated debate with a security guard directing traffic. He hammered the hood of a van and screamed that he would pick up the guard in a dark corner. Lebrasseur then cut into line, bypassing others. He verbally attacked the employee there who refused to let him.

Romanian mafia boss Mihai Alexandru Preda busted

Mihai Alexandru Preda is a leader in the Romanian mafia and 'Riviera Maya Gang' which has been operating a card skimming scam in Cancun, Tulum and Playa del Carmen since 2016. Gangsters installed over 100 card-cloning devices in ATMs, from which almost $4m was stolen. The gang changed the card slots and keyboards of the ATMs to obtain information from bank cards, cloned them, and withdrew money from bank accounts. Skimming devices allowed thieves to withdraw funds from ATMs in other countries halfway around the world.

Preda was arrested in July 2022 while living in Poland.

Leader of the Riviera Maya organization and principal owner of Intacash, is Florian 'The Shark' Tudor, a Romanian with permanent residence in Mexico. Tudor claims he’s a legitimate businessman who’s been harassed and robbed by Mexican authorities. In 2018 Preda and his gang were busted at a Fond du Lac Wisconsin ATM. A witness saw the two repeatedly using an ATM, and acting nervously. He called police, who arrived shortly afterwards. Cops found 137 forged or cloned credit cards and $7,500 in cash. Preda pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud of a financial institution, and three counts of theft from a financial institution. Another 40 counts were dismissed.

'Stand-ins' used by organized crime to sell homes without owner's knowledge

The same fraudulent driver's licence was used to rent two Toronto homes that criminals tried to sell. One of the frauds was thwarted but the other was successful. The case made headlines when Toronto cops issued a press release to help identify suspects. Stand-ins aren't the masterminds behind these frauds. They're usually low-level criminals in it for a quick buck. The 54-year-old man was out on bail for unrelated fraud charges and is currently facing a total of 14 other charges. While the photo belongs to the stand-in, the name on the driver's licence was that of another fraud victim.

Players at the next step of the fraud are like paid actors; they have rehearsed every answer. Few schemes succeed, but enough do and the payoff is high enough that organinzed crime keeps trying. At least 30 homes in the GTA have either been sold or mortgaged without the real owners' knowledge. An organized crime group starts by looking through publicly available information for a home with a small mortgage. Even the 'stand-ins' are shared among crime groups. After impersonating the homeowner things move quickly. A sale or mortgage can occur in days with crooks looking for the next fraud within a week. TPS put out a press release seeking the public's help identifying this man and woman, who impersonated the homeowners in the sale.