Cocaine Seized in Grand Piano | Investigators Knew the Music

July 11, 11:05 a.m. A delivery truck stops at a property on 1^er Castle-Hill Row, in Saint-Félix-de-Valois, in the Lanaudière region, northeast of Montreal.

“Are you lost? In the past, other delivery men have gotten lost,” a resident of the property asks the driver.

The package is unloaded, the delivery person leaves the premises.

1:07 p.m. A rental truck arrives at the same location. It spends the night there before leaving the next day, around 5:55 a.m., for a property on 7^e Rank, in Saint-Denis-de-Brompton, in the Eastern Townships.

At 8:17 a.m. on July 12, the vehicle arrived on site and backed into a garage on the property. The local resident helped the driver with his maneuvers.

At 8:26 a.m., less than 10 minutes later, people were busy working around the package, using hammers and crowbars, and rotating drill bits.

“It’s all inside, it’s the same way,” exchange individuals, at least one of whom speaks Spanish.

“It’s all the same shape as the piano. You have to open the case,” one said.

But a few minutes later, the tone changes.

“It’s not stash [de la cocaïne, selon la police] ! Look,” the first one exclaims.

“What’s wrong?” asks a second.

“It’s not stash, damn it…” the other added.

At 9:49 a.m., three individuals left the garage and were immediately arrested by investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Inside the building, the sleuths found the piano, most of the packages still inside. Some had been taken out, one of them cut open with a precision knife.

They recognize their packages because they had replaced the cocaine with another harmless substance a few days earlier.

Police Sonata

Last week, the RCMP’s C Division (Quebec) announced that it had seized 62 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a grand piano that had left Colombia.

Four suspects were arrested. One of them, Michael Dubois, 37, of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton, requested, in vain, his release, and a judicial summary was filed during his bail hearing.

In fact, it was the United States Homeland Security Investigations that first intercepted the musical instrument that was flying in Miami. piano-piano towards Saint-Félix-de-Valois.

The Americans took out their drills…and the drugs from the piano, took pictures of the cocaine and alerted the RCMP.

On July 5, the RCMP recovered the piano and the drugs, and conducted tests which came back positive for cocaine.

Investigators replaced the drugs with another substance and obtained warrants to plant alarm, tracking and listening devices in the piano.

They then carried out a controlled delivery, and it was even a police double agent who delivered the large package to Saint-Félix-de-Valois on the morning of July 11.

It was the microphone(s) installed in the package that picked up and recorded the sounds of tools being activated on the piano and the suspects’ conversations.

Their day started on a very bad note.

The Godmother of the Cali Cartel

In addition to Dubois, the other suspects arrested and charged with importing and possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking are Billy Donais-Cadieux, 44, of Saint-Félix-de-Valois, Pablo Hernandez, 52, of Pointe-Claire, and Juan Diego Hernandez, 28, of Laval.

The latter two are respectively the son and grandson of Cecilia Ines Barbosa.

This one, nicknamed the Queen of the Cali Cartel, regularly made headlines during the 1990s, so much so that a television series called The godmother and inspired by his life was produced in Quebec in 2013-2014.

Originally from Colombia, Cecilia Ines Barbosa arrived in Quebec with members of her family around the beginning of the 1980s, but it was mainly during the following decade that she made a name for herself.

Ines Barbosa had contacts among high-level traffickers in the Cali cartel in Colombia, hence her nickname, which she has previously said was grossly exaggerated.

In 1992, Ines Barbosa was sentenced to five years in prison for importing 17 kg of cocaine.

Two years later, she had just been released when she violated her conditions and was arrested again for a 10kg cocaine deal with a police undercover agent. For this repeat offence, she was sentenced to six years in prison.

Two corrupt police officers, one lawyer murdered

Ines Barbosa’s lawyer was Mr.^e Sidney Leithman, shot dead in Montreal in 1991 while finishing a trial against Colombians linked to the Cali cartel accused of drug trafficking.

The godmother had in her pay an RCMP officer who sold her information, Jorge Leite. He had resigned in haste before fleeing to Portugal.

Ines Barbosa is also said to have received information from another member of the federal police, Claude Savoie, who committed suicide in December 1992, at the age of 49.

Before the parole commissioners, Ines Barbosa recounted having transacted 75 million in Montreal exchange offices at the turn of the 1990s.

At one time she was reportedly in debt to the Cali Cartel for several million dollars and her brother was kidnapped while visiting Colombia.

Not the first time

Pablo Hernandez was sentenced to four years in prison in Ontario in 2002 for cocaine trafficking.

In 1994, he was also arrested following an investigation by the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and the American police into the seizure of 650 kg of cocaine in the Los Angeles area. Pablo Hernandez was charged, but later released from all charges.

His son has no criminal history.

In the piano case, both Hernandezes were released on bail, including a $5,000 deposit each.

The investigation into Donais-Cadieux’s release was postponed, “for form’s sake”, to the same date as the other accused, 1^er august.

Since some readers might be wondering, the piano was, according to what was written on the customs receipt, a baby grand model manufactured in 1910 by the German firm Rachals of Hamburg.

To contact Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.