Juan Ramon Fernandez, a high-level Montreal Mafia associate who was deported from Canada for the third time last year, has resurfaced once more.

For background to this thread I've started, see johnnyboysala's thread at http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=714558#Post714558. Fernandez, a one-time driver for Frank Cotroni Sr. and Vito Rizzuto who had been based in Ontario for many years, deserves his own thread.

Vincent Larouche of La Presse appears to be relying on information in Italian-language articles published in the last 24 hours about an operation that targeted Fernandez, among others -- recent information shows 21 people have already been arrested; Fernandez has not.

Link: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justic...zzuto-cible.php

Google translation:

Mafia roundup in Sicily: a former associate of Rizzuto targeted
Vincent Larouche
La Presse
Published on 08 May 2013 at 12:48 | Updated at 12:48

Italian police have launched a major operation targeting mafia including a former close Vito Rizzuto who have joined several leaders of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily to develop drug trafficking "axis Palermo-Montreal" after his expulsion from Canada the last year.

According to the daily reports La Repubblica this morning, the Italian Carabinieri arrested 21 people in this operation.

Juan Ramon Fernandez, former Canadian gangster who went to school with Vito Rizzuto before being expelled from the country, however, have escaped the raid. It is now on the run, with another Canadian Mafia who came to visit him in Sicily in recent weeks.

Fernandez, who is of Spanish origin, was described in Canadian courts in the early 2000s as one of those who watched the interests of the godfather Vito Rizzuto Montreal to Toronto.

In 2004, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for crimes connected to the Mafia, including a plot to assassinate a bar owner who owed money to the Rizzuto clan. He also admitted his involvement in a conspiracy to traffic in 1000 kilos of cocaine with the Mafia and the Hells Angels in Quebec.

The type of 57 years was deported from Canada since his release from prison in April 2012. According to La Repubblica , he would then installed Bagheria, a Sicilian town near Palermo. Officially, he was a martial arts instructor. "In fact, he organized new business on the Palermo-Montreal axis, especially drug cases," the newspaper said, citing in particular a commander of the Carabinieri in his article.

The authorities reportedly discovered that Fernandez was linked with a new group of leaders of the Cosa Nostra in this region, once the stronghold of the "capo of all capos", Bernardo Provenzano.

The newspaper also reports that it is the Canadian police have alerted the Carabinieri on the presence of Fernandez in Sicily.

- In collaboration with Mathieu Perreault