Two individuals arrested after an investigation lasting just a few days in possession of a total of 80 kilograms of cocaine, valued at 2.8 million, pleaded guilty and were sentenced on Thursday at the courthouse in Montreal.
Same Sane Muong, 29, employee of a pizzeria in Vieux-Longueuil, and Sergio Ciampanelli, 49, resident of Longueuil and employee of a company specializing in the management of education savings plans, received respectively four years and three years in prison.
On November 21, 2022, investigators from the Northeast Multisectoral Firearms Team (EMAF) of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) transmitted information to their colleagues at the Organized Crime Division according to which Muong was involved in large-scale cocaine trafficking for a criminal organization.
After a few days of tailings, on November 30, investigators learned that Muong was heading to Toronto. When he returned to Quebec, in the middle of the evening, they followed him and observed him placing a box in the trunk of a white Mercedes.
PHOTO FILED IN COURT
The Home Depot box containing 30 kilograms of cocaine as it was deposited by Muong in the trunk of Sergio Ciampanelli’s Mercedes on the evening of November 30, 2022
A few minutes later, sleuths intercepted the two vehicles and found 46 kg of cocaine in Muong’s SUV and 30 kg in the box left in the Mercedes driven by Ciampanelli. Another four kilograms were later found at Muong’s house during a search.
“Not recommended” dating
Judge Guylaine Rivest, of the Court of Quebec, endorsed the joint suggestion of the prosecution and the defense and took into account several mitigating factors, in particular the fact that Muong and Ciampanelli have no criminal history.
However, according to a profile of Sergio Ciampanelli drawn up by the investigators and filed during the process, the police saw him on several occasions in the company of Maxime Dubois, considered by the police to be a cocaine trafficker present on the South Shore of Montreal. , and Jean-Winsing Barthelus, one of gang leader Gregory Woolley’s lieutenants.
According to the document, Ciampanelli was also observed in August 2020 in a restaurant in the company of five individuals, including Leonardo Rizzuto, youngest son of the late mob boss Vito Rizzuto, and, on another occasion, in a group of which Sacha was part. César Nelson, shot dead in 2020.
“This ease in rubbing shoulders with unsavory individuals is worrying to say the least,” Judge Guylaine Rivest wrote when refusing her provisional release last January.
From Ciampanelli’s vehicle, investigators seized a PGP-type BlackBerry device (pretty good privacy) which was obviously reset remotely before the SPVM’s technological crime experts could analyze it.
“It is a hard drug which wreaks havoc in society, and whose consequences are disastrous, and this, in astronomical quantities”, underlined judge Guylaine Rivest in pronouncing the sentence against the two individuals.
“I’m not going to do it again”, simply promised the judge the condemned Same Sane Muong while his co-defendant did not want to make any statement.
The police also seized a sum of more than $4,500 which was confiscated for the benefit of the Attorney General of Quebec.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.