Louis-Vincent Bourcier, a former elite soldier in the Canadian army who served in Afghanistan and who was convicted of trafficking fentanyl, convinced parole board members to send him to a halfway house.
Posted at 5:06 p.m.
Bourcier, 37, was arrested in 2017, following a meticulous investigation by Royal Canadian Mounted Police C Division dubbed Crocodile.
The trafficker was selling large quantities of fentanyl — an opioid 40 times more potent than heroin — carfentanil — a substance more potent than fentanyl — and other drugs on the underground web under the pseudonym Pharmaphil.
The transactions were carried out in cryptocurrency and the drugs were put in envelopes which were then deposited in mailboxes, en route to the rest of Canada, the United States and elsewhere in the world.
PHOTOS FILED IN COURT
Authorities became aware of the traffic when a postal worker was seriously incapacitated by a substance at a sorting centre.
Investigators from the RCMP’s Organized Crime Joint Investigation Unit (UMECO) in Montreal then began to do painstaking work to trace the chain.
They monitored no less than 80 mailboxes to identify those used by traffickers, trace suspicious envelopes and follow their route.
PHOTOS FILED IN COURT
Part of the envelopes containing substances seized by RCMP investigators.
Bourcier was preparing the drugs at his residence on the South Shore of Montreal and the investigators sent a double agent there who posed as a henchman of the criminal biker groups who demanded a tax on his activities.
Bourcier was later arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison in January 2019.
Souvenirs from Afghanistan
Before the commissioners of parole, Louis-Vincent Bourcier said “not wanting to make the same mistakes and wanting to start his life from scratch”.
The man was in the Canadian army for ten years and made two stays in Afghanistan, one of which lasted five months during which he was exposed to “traumatic” events, write the commissioners.
Upon his return, Bourcier suffered from post-traumatic shock. He even asked for help when he learned the Taliban had taken over the country, the commissioners point out in their eight-page decision.
“It seems clear to them (to your stakeholders) that your time in the army and, specifically, your mission in Afghanistan, have left traces on your daily functioning, and that this aspect remains the cornerstone of this incarceration” , say the commissioners in particular.
They point out that since the beginning of his incarceration, Bourcier has had a conformist and irreproachable behavior. He held a job at the penitentiary and read 250 books.
“In court, you added that your sentence saved your life, not knowing how far you would have gone in your criminal activities and what damage could have resulted for you and your loved ones, had it not been for your arrest. “, also note the commissioners.
Louis-Vincent Bourcier has no other criminal history.
Judging that full parole would be premature, the commissioners agreed that he should go to a halfway house for six months.
However, they impose several conditions on him: not to have any contact with anyone he knows to be involved in criminal activities, to disclose all his financial transactions to his stakeholders and to have a single communication device whose messaging systems must be unlocked and message history, retained.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of La Presse.