The alleged killer of a gang member in the pay of the Montreal mafia murdered in the fall of 2020 has just been arrested, a year and a half after the crime.
Posted at 2:19 p.m.
Emanuell Roberts Hunte, who will turn 24 in a few days, will be charged Thursday afternoon at the Montreal courthouse with the first degree murder of Frantz Louis, 49, who was shot with several projectiles from a firearm in Montreal in the morning of November 19, 2020.
Around 8:20 a.m., Louis had just gotten in or out of his BMW brand vehicle, on rue Fabre, near rue Villeray, when he was hit by bullets. His death was pronounced a little later in the hospital.
The Major Crimes investigators of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) then launched an investigation and arrested the alleged driver of the suspects’ getaway vehicle, Andrew Thomas Labrèche, in the following days.
But the shooter was still missing. It was only on Tuesday that Superior Court Judge Eric Downs ordered a warrant to be issued for Hunte, after the prosecution filed a direct indictment against him and his alleged accomplice, Andrew Thomas Labreche.
A direct indictment makes it possible to skip the preliminary inquiry stage and go directly to trial.
According to our information, various investigative techniques have notably enabled the police to identify Hunte and to make a link between him and the vehicle used in the crime.
There were negotiations for him to surrender to the investigators.
Hunte, whose address is in Châteauguay, would have no criminal record, according to a short search.
Employee of the “street boss”
At the time he was killed, Frantz Louis was accused, along with three other individuals, in a case of loan sharking and extortion carried out on behalf of an individual considered by the police to be the boss of the street (street boss) of the Montreal mafia, Davide Barberio.
PHOTO ARCHIVES PROVIDED BY THE SPVM
Frantz Louis, during his arrest in an extortion case.
Among their provisional release conditions, the suspects were not to communicate with Barberio and a certain Atna Onha.
The latter, nicknamed Tupac, has already been a henchman of Barberio, according to police sources, but he would have fallen out with the latter several months ago.
Davide Barberio, 42, was the victim of an attempted murder in his garage in Laval last September. He would then have spent several months outside the country.
“The conclusion of this police investigation now brings the resolution rate for homicides committed in metropolitan France to 92% in 2020. This encouraging result serves as a reminder that criminal investigations are often complex and require time. . This is particularly true in the case of murders linked to organized crime, an environment where entourages and witnesses are reluctant to collaborate with the police,” writes the SPVM in a press release issued Thursday about Hunte’s arrest.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of La Presse.