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Alain Charron |
Alain Charron was born in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, in 1948. He moved to Montreal and became associated with the Dubois brothers, who began making a name for themselves in the late 1960s. Over the years, he would become especially close to Adrien, the youngest of the nine Dubois brothers, and Donald Lavoie, who the media once described as Charron's "blood brother." Police raided Charron's North-Dame street apartment on October 4, 1974, and seized an assortment of firearms, some ski masks, and hand cuffs. They arrested Charron, Maurice Dubois, Roland Dubois, René Dubois, and Réal Lévesque but were forced to release them later that night for lack of proof. |
Charron blammed Henry Fernandez for having tipped police about the raid on his apartment. He also owed Charron $5,000. Charron and Donald Lavoie murdered Fernandez and Linda Maiore, who just happened to be with him that day, on February 22, 1978. The two were arrested and eventually acquitted of the crime. During the winter of 1978, according to Donald Lavoie, he and Charron murdered Jean Carreau in a chalet in Lac Beauport. Accompanied by Jean Tremblay and Claude Marcoux, Charron and Lavoie wanted to eliminate Carreau so that they could replace him for a planned armed robbery at the Universite of Laval. The victim's bones would be found in the woods by a jogger and his dog. When Lavoie turned government informant in 1980, Charron retreated to a Laurentian Cottage, near Claude Dubois'. He also began to act as Dubois bodyguard. On January 17, 1981, Charron and his girlfriend, along with Claude Dubois and his wife, decided to get away from the stress they were facing, because of Lavoie's defection, and left for the United States. Armed with false identification, as they were not allowed to leave the country, they arrived at the Ogdensbury, New York border, where immigration officers discovered Dubois and his wife's real identification papers. The two were held for a few hours and returned to Canada. Charron and his girlfriend were able to entrer and two days later, thanks to the help of two of the gang's soldiers, Dubois and his wife gained entry into the United States. The four of them vacationed in Florida for three weeks before returning to Montreal. Lavoie revealed authorities in January, 1982, that Charron was responsible for the murder of Jean Carreau. Charron learned of the news and went into hiding. In February, 1982, a suitcase cotaining 50 pounds of hashish was sent from Charron in Miami to Schenectady, New York, where it was supposed to be smuggled into Canada for sale. But the suitcase was lost in the mail and Charron travelled to New York to help locate it. It was eventually found but not before the drug had deteriorated substantially. Once in Montreal, Yvon Belzil and Frank "Dunie" Ryan, the leader of the West End Gang, had a lot of trouble selling it. He was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida in May, 1983, as he was arriving for a doctor's appointment. He had been changing location and identities every three months as a precautionary measure. His extradition to Canada was approved four months later and was formally charged with Carreau's murder on November 9, 1983. The trial began in June 1985. During the trial, Judge Jean-Luc Dutil refused to allow Charron's lawyer to ask informant Donald Lavoie a certain question. The defense challenged the judge's decision but the Supreme Court of Canada finally dismissed their appeal in 1990. The trial continued and Charron was eventually acquitted. In Autumn of 1992, Charron was among 19 people arrested in Baleine, Nova Scotia and charged with importing 53 tons of hashish. They were found in possession of 27 tons, with a value of $365 million. Two fishing boats were seized in the bust. In January, 1993, while he was out on bail, American authorities discovered 50 kilos of cocaine hidden in a secret department of a Cadillac that had been rented out to a certain Alain Charron. The drug had been shipped from South America to Buffalo and was arranged to be smuggled across the border into Canada. Charron was arrested as he exited an airplane in Nassau, Bahamas, where he intended to spend a few days in the sun, on February 17, 1996. The United States charged him with the Buffalo seizure ten days later. Things only got worse for Charron. His name again came up in March, 1996, in connection to a popular tavern in Saint-Sauveur. The bar was among seven locations raided by the RCMP in the Laurentians, the Eastern Townships, and Montreal. Charron's home in Val-Morin was also among those raided. Police seized $20,000 in cash, computer systems, a coin collection valued at $20,000, more than 100 boxes of documents, and a 1946 Bentley. Police explained that the raids were carried out to determine whether Charron and his associates could be charged with living off the profits of narcotics trafficking. Charron, who is supected in over 14 murders, asked the Bahamas government to be given status of habeas corpus but the country's Supreme Court authorized Charron's extradition to the United States on March 17, 1998. His lawyers appealed the court's decision but failed. Charron was escorted back to the United States, where, in June 2001, he was sentenced to eight years in prison. On June 18, 2002, he was transferred to the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary in Quebec to finish serving his sentence for cocaine trafficking. He still faces hashish trafficking charges from his 1992 arrest. |