Roberto Scoppa arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking

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Operation Dead Hand was carried out by the RCMP in collaboration with American authorities.

Radio-Canada

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Roberto Scoppa, the brother of Andrew and Salvatore Scoppa, two members of the Montreal mafia murdered in 2019, was arrested Tuesday in Montreal, as part of the dismantling of an international drug trafficking network between Mexico, the United States and Canada.

Roberto Scoppa, 55, later appeared with Ivan Gravel Gonzalez, 32, also arrested in the metropolis, at the Montreal courthouse, where they are being held.

Operation Dead Hand, led by the RCMP's Joint Organized Crime Unit, in collaboration with US authorities, including the FBI, has also led to the arrest of eight other people in Mexico and the United States.

Considered by the courts as a A major drug trafficker, Roberto Scoppa is suspected of importing large quantities of narcotics from a supplier based in Mexico.

As for Ivan Gravel Gonzalez, both a resident of Montreal and the Dominican Republic, he is suspected of having participated in a drug export operation based in the United States.

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American justice requests l' extradition of the two men, who currently remain detained under section 17 of Canada's Extradition Act.

It was on the basis of information obtained by the investigators that it was possible to better understand the modus operandi of the traffickers.

The organized criminal group used, among other things, Canadian dispatchers who traveled to Los Angeles for short periods.

They coordinated the delivery of large shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine, which were loaded onto long-haul tractor-trailers bound for Canada. Large quantities of fentanyl were seized following the investigation. Transportation was coordinated by a network of drivers working with dozens of trucking companies that crossed the U.S.-Canada border through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the Buffalo Peace Bridge and the Blue Water Bridge, says the FBI in a press release.