Roberto Scoppa has said in vain that he has not committed an offense in the United States, that he is not connected to the Montreal mafia, that he had no link with his late brothers, that he is important to his family and is an asset to society, he failed on Friday in his attempt to obtain his provisional release while awaiting further proceedings.
Scoppa is subject to an extradition request to the United States after being arrested in January following a major investigation initiated by the FBI and in which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police participated.
The 55-year-old is charged with four counts of distributing heroin and cocaine in the United States, and faces at least ten years for each charge.
The evidence against Scoppa rests in part on the participation of a mole whose text messages were spied on by police, his phone tapped, and who wore a portable recording system even during a meeting with Scoppa in Mexico.
American police say in particular that they have intercepted messages implicating Scoppa in the seizure of four kilograms of heroin and 15 kilograms of cocaine carried out by investigators from the Joint Organized Crime Investigation Unit (UMÉCO) of Division C of the RCMP in December 2022.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RCMP
Drugs and money seized by CFSEU RCMP C Division investigators as part of the US Dead Hand investigation.
During a meeting with the mole in Mexico following this seizure, while he was recorded, Scoppa described some ways of importing drugs into Canada and said he made a million dollars a year from drug trafficking. narcotics.
” We do not choose our family “
Scoppa requested his provisional release pending further proceedings, announcing his intention to contest his extradition because, he said, he had committed no crime in the United States.
He also said he plays an important role for his family, that once released, a construction employer on the South Shore of Montreal was waiting for him to offer him a job at 40 hours/week, which he is ready to guarantee a large sum of money, that he agreed to wear a GPS bracelet so that the authorities could track his whereabouts, that he is not a member of the Montreal mafia and that he had no links with his two brothers, Andrew and Salvatore, involved in an attempted putsch against the Sicilian clan in 2016 and assassinated three years later.
“You don’t choose your family,” he testified, responding to a question from federal prosecutor Me Erin Morgan.
The imperturbable judge
But Superior Court Judge Marc-André Blanchard said the evidence seemed to show that Scoppa committed offenses in the United States.
He added that a GPS bracelet was not a panacea against the risk of flight that no matter how much the accused offered to put up as security, he told the mole that he was making a million dollars a year with drug trafficking, that his employer and his family would have difficulty following his comings and goings while he would never know in advance which construction site he would be sent to, that Scoppa, according to American evidence, was connected to a sophisticated organization and that the crime allegedly committed in the United States also exists in Canada.
“Canada honors its obligations,” Judge Blanchard declared in particular, concluding that Scoppa had not discharged himself from the first criterion for provisional release, namely the risk of flight, and ordering his continued incarceration.
Hearing these words, members of Scoppa’s family, who were sitting in the room, burst into tears.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 524 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.