A man was shot and killed at around 7:30 p.m. this evening in the borough of Saint-Léonard, northeast of Montreal, La Presse has learned. According to our information, the victim is Piero Arena, an individual linked to the Mafia already convicted in the past for importing cocaine.
Arena, 63, was in his condo building on the corner of Jean-Talon and Michelet streets when gunshots were heard. The exact circumstances of the crime are not yet known.
In November 2013, Piero Arena was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison after being arrested, along with accomplices, in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation dubbed Cynique and targeting two organizations that attempted to import cocaine in Quebec. According to the evidence, Arena had acted as an intermediary between a supplier and a buyer, Louis Vigeant, for the import of 275 kg of cocaine, valued at $ 2 million. But what Arena did not know was that Vigeant, a former criminal, had become a civilian undercover officer for the RCMP. Piero Arena, a veteran of the crime whose family was in the entourage of the Cotroni at the time of the Calabrian predominance of the Montreal mafia, was allegedly observed by the police during the Colosseum investigation which beheaded the Sicilian mafia in November 2006. In 2002, Piero Arena was arrested along with several individuals in connection with an investigation dubbed Clover into cocaine imports. He had been sentenced to four years for conspiracy. He was also sentenced to 57 months in the United States for another import case dating from 1996. Already targeted for the first time?
Arena was seated on the terrace of the Sorento café bar, located at the corner of rue Jean-Talon and rue des Angevins on July 22, when an individual opened fire in the middle of the afternoon, injuring another customer with shards of glass.
Sources believe Arena was the target in the failed attack at a licensed facility he attended.
Piero Arena is said to have been seated with a few individuals, including a member of the Hells Angels, when the shooter appeared and dropped the magazine on his weapon before retrieving it and opening fire. According to reports, Arena is said to have been in debt. The investigation was entrusted to the Major Crimes Division of the SPVM.
NYMafia there you go.
I’ve just past in front of the place. Cops are everywhere
