| Denis Lemieux |
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| Denis Lemieux was born in the early 1940s and rose to become one of the most successful and important drug traffickers on the south shore of Montreal. He established ties with high ranking members of the West End Gang and Montreal Mafia, all while remaining independent of both organizations. Lemieux's rise in the underworld started in the late 1970s, when he worked as a doorman at some of the south shore's hottest night clubs. He pushed small quantities of drugs to customers, pulling in an extra couple of hundred dollars a week. His business flourished and, by the early 1980s, Lemieux ran a very lucrative drug network. He purchased his cocaine from Montreal Mafia member Sabatino "Sam" Nicolucci, sometimes buying as much as a kilo at a time. |
Teaming with Mafia associate Luis Cantieri, Lemieux began importing his own cocaine into the country. The shipments, usually containing ten to twenty kilograms of cocaine, were loaded into boats in Brazil, unloaded in either New York or Baltimore, and smuggled over the border and into Quebec. He was soon a millionaire and built a reputation of being one of the south shore's most successful and violent drug traffickers. He purchased an expensive home in Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu, two brand new automobiles, including a Mercedes 300, and opened two bars, where much of his cocaine was allegedly sold. Lemieux became rarely seen in public without being accompanied by a bodyguard, and was known to often be armed himself. But Lemieux's new found success also attracted the attention of the authorities and, in 1984, police seized ten kilos of cocaine at Mirabel airport. On July 31, 1985, police busted Lemieux as he was purchasing ten kilograms of the same drug from Vincent Zito. He was sentenced to 14 years. Lemieux was paroled on November 22, 1990, and immediately returned to his same old tricks. Sure enough, he was soon back on top of much of the south shore's drug market. Lemieux was a suspect in the October 7, 1992 murder of Mario Pizzicarola in Saint-Henri. Inside the victim's pockets, police discovered a paper with Lemieux's name written on it. A week later, on October 14, Ghislain Renzo's bullet riddled corpse was discovered in Laval. The names of Lemieux and Francois Leblanc, the gang leader's right-hand man and top lieutenant, quickly arose as potential suspects. Two machinegun wielding assassins burst into Francois Leblanc's condominium at the Havre des Beiges resort in Brossard late on November 9, 1992. Leblanc, 32, and his girlfriend, 23 year old Nathalie Beauregard, were pumped full of bullets and the gunmen began to ransack the residence, apparently looking for $500,000 in cash that Lemieux and his associate had allegedly recently made from a drug transaction. Catherine Morin, 20 years old and pregnant, happened to walk in on the killers and was also murdered. The killers then went upstairs to Lemieux's condo, protected by security cameras. They surprised the gang leader and shot him several times in the head. Lemieux, Leblanc, Beauregard, and Morin lay dead atleast 24 hours before their bodies were discovered. Daniel Jolivet and Paul-André Saint-Pierre were arrested and chagred with the first degree murders of four people. Jolivet would receive two life sentences, while Saint-Pierre would get a 12 year term. |