Investigators from the Sûreté du Québec traveled Tuesday morning to the Baie Carillon sector, in Saint-André-d’Argenteuil, to try to find clues relating to the disappearance more than eight years ago of a member influential member of a Montreal street gang.
On April 2, 2015, Jean Raymond Claude, 37, went to a restaurant in Centropolis de Laval in the company of his brother and another man. He then left the scene in a white Volkswagen Jetta and has not been seen since.
A DNA analysis confirmed that a bone of the missing man was found in the Ottawa River, in the Saint-André-d’Argenteuil sector, in the Laurentians, in the summer of 2020.
The case is still considered an unsolved disappearance even though Jean Raymond Claude is presumed dead.
Investigators from the Division of Investigation of Murders and Disappearances Linked to Organized Crime traveled to Carillon Bay, presumably hoping to find other remains of the deceased to advance their investigation and allow an autopsy to be performed.
“This operation stems from information collected during the investigation and mobilizes several police officers from the Sûreté du Québec, including a team of divers,” indicates the SQ in a press release.
Anyone with information on this case is invited to meet investigators at a mobile command post parked near 5465 rue Grand-Maison, in Saint-Placide.
A former member of the 67
At the end of the 90s, Jean Raymond Claude and his brother, Guy-Robert, were part of the 67, a formidable street gang of blue allegiance co-led by the kingpin Ducarme Joseph.
Jean Raymond Claude had several histories of violence, possession of weapons and drugs, but had never been sentenced to a federal sentence (more than two years).
Sources told The Press that Ducarme Joseph and Jean Raymond Claude were allegedly involved in a theft against bikers in early 1999.
The suspects then bought a Mercedes with the money from their theft, but the bikers found them and riddled their new vehicle with bullets on the Metropolitan highway. An agreement to reimburse the amount of the theft would then have been concluded.
According to our information, Jean Raymond Claude, alias Jean-Jean, was close to Joseph Ghaleb, a businessman linked to the mafia and the Hells Angels murdered in Laval in November 2004, and whose name has already circulated in the investigation into the attempted murder of the late journalist in criminal affairs of the Montreal Journal Michel Auger.
Claude was also a friend of street gang member Thierry Beaubrun, killed at the same time as a rising mafia star, Mike Lapolla, during an argument at the Le Moomba bar in Laval, during the Colisée investigation, in March 2005.
Ducarme Joseph was shot and killed in the Saint-Michel neighborhood in August 2014, likely in retaliation for the December 2009 murder of Nick Rizzuto, eldest son of former Montreal mafia godfather Vito Rizzuto.
This crime has still not been solved and the investigation continues.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.