Another Barletta arson

A luxury home destroyed in a recent fire had been restrained in a police crackdown on an HA gambling ring. It has connections to three men charged with money laundering. The five-bedroom home at 189 Lake Dr. had just sold for $7.9m. The home on Georgian Bay is the third connected to Robert Barletta to be destroyed by fire.

Homebuilder Michael Curtis, 37, and developer Douglas Lang Adams, 58, were charged with money laundering and possessing proceeds of crime as part of Operation Hobart. Robert Barletta narrowly survived a March 30, 2020, attempt on his life.

Gangsters land free money

Solid Gold is a peeler bar with a tight connection to the Calabrian Mafia.

A list published by CRA reveals those who have cashed in from a program, created last spring, that finances 75% of companies' payroll. It cost taxpayers $55 billion.

Solid Gold has received government assistance. Influential Calabrian mobster Moreno Gallo was expelled from the country for serious criminality in January 2012 and murdered the following year in Mexico was once the owner. In recent years, arson and gunfire have occurred often around Solid Gold. The Pro Gym, linked to the Hells Angels for years has also received free money. Vice-president of Pro Gym is Christian Ménard, a Sherbrooke Hells Angel.

"The subsidy was used to pay part of the salaries of the employees with whom we have kept an employment relationship" says the biker, who has pledged to ignore Covid-19 lockdowns. Individuals convicted of tax fraud by Revenu Québec had no problems. WE Charity (UNIS in French) is also on the list. It is embroiled in scandal after Trudeau hired it to manage a $900m student volunteer program. The program earned WE Charity nearly $43m million in management fees.

SC cops land huge drug haul

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in SC announced the largest meth seizure in the county’s history. More than 500 pounds of meth was seized. Also found was 9 pounds of fentanyl, cocaine, weapons, and $415k in cash. Mexicans Christian Eduerdo Tinejero Pena, 22, and Jairo Martinez Covarrobias, 37 face a mountain of charges.

Cops say the bust is worth $8m and is cartel related.

Cocaine smuggling route through Libya

Drug traffickers are increasingly looking to North Africa as a transhipment point for cocaine. Customs inspectors at Malta Freeport seized 612 kg of cocaine worth $84m in December, a record haul. Three days earlier, authorities at the port of Guayaquil in Ecuador seized 582kg of cocaine hidden in 19 pieces of teak bound for Libya and Syria. The size of the two shipments to Libya strongly suggests onwards transport to Europe.

Christian Deschênes’s plea denied

It all added up to a 45 year sentence.

After passes to leave prison to visit his dying wife were cancelled due to COVID-19, Christian Deschênes sued. His plea has been denied. In 2001 he was arrested in a plot to kidnap Francesco Arcadi, the street boss of the Rizzuto Mafia clan. While he faced trial, he was nailed as a conspirator in a $1m armoured truck heist.

Deschênes, now 64, isn’t the man he once was, the parole board was told. Housed in a minimum-security facility in Laval, he was granted unescorted temporary absences, although he was turned down for full parole and day parole. His wife has terminal cancer with a dire prognosis of about a year.

328kg of cocaine landed in Florida

St. Thomas cops Teshawn Adams, Shakim Mike.

Six men, including two police officers, were arrested after agents found 328 kg of cocaine at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport. The four who were aboard the plane are U.S. citizens residing in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Shakim Mike, Maleek Leanard, Roystin David and Teshawn Adams were arrested.

Delaware gangsters nailed

Marquise A. Mack

Operation Rise-n-Shyne was named after one of the gangs, the G-Shyne Bloods in Dover, Delaware. 39 were indicted on a combined more than 260 charges tied to four gangs: G-Shyne Bloods, Mob Piro Bloods, Sex, Money, Murder Bloods, and 48-Gang.

Altaf Khanani - Cameron Ortis

Altaf Khanani was one of the world's largest money launderers. The Pakistani was involved in the illicit movement of money between Pakistan, the UAE, US, UK, Canada and Australia. He moved money for cartels and terrorist groups. FinCEN files suggest Khanani moved $14b annually. The Khanani Money Laundering Organization funnelled billions across the globe on behalf of terrorists, drug traffickers, and criminals.

Khanani was arrested in 2015 by the DEA.

Khanani was sent to the US, where he was sentenced to 68 months. He was released from prison on July 13.

A ring of currency traders in Toronto laundered hundreds of millions in drug money annually, and transferring huge sums between Iran and Canada via Dubai, a banking zone used by the Iranian regime. In 2016 spy Cameron Ortis took over the file and began offering to sell intelligence to the Khanani network.

Gambia seizes 3 tonnes of cocaine

Gambian authorities seized nearly three tonnes of cocaine from a shipment of industrial salt from Ecuador. It is one of the largest ever busts in West Africa. Smugglers generally use West Africa as a transshipment point for cocaine en route from South America to Europe.

Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr.

Meredith Jr. traveled to Washington for the Trump rally. He was charged with threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He sent a text message saying he was thinking about putting “a bullet in her (Pelosi’s) noggin on Live TV.”

Cops found a Glock 19, a Tavor X95 assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.