The suspected murderer of Vick Sévère Paul, a former Red Gang member who was stabbed to death in Laval in May, was arrested a week ago, the Laval Police Service (SPL) announced in a press release on Thursday.
Published at 12:55 p.m.
The suspect, Jean-Philippe Mirand, 40, was arrested on September 27 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
He had been located three days earlier and investigators from the LPS Personal Crimes Squad traveled there to arrest him, working with Halifax Regional Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
It appears that Mirand quickly fled the country after the crime and was tracked down in the Maritimes on September 24th.
The suspect was charged with manslaughter. He remains in custody and is scheduled to return to court on Friday.
In case of fraud
Miranda has some criminal records.
In 2012, he was among a group of around fifty people arrested for fraud as part of a major investigation by the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec called Chapter.
The frauds, which totaled nearly $100 million, were carried out using cloned bank cards and sophisticated means.
Police subsequently seized 12,000 counterfeit bank cards, tampered payment terminals, fake ATM fronts, $120,000 in cash and firearms.
The group had branches as far away as England, Tunisia and even New Zealand.
Following the trial, Mirand pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, fraud and credit card theft and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
The 40-year-old also has a history of drug dealing and assault.
Surprise attack
Vick Sévère Paul, 51, was secretly stabbed, police said, probably following a conflict that broke out on Rue Claude-Gagné near Place Bell at around 2:22 a.m. on the night of May 7.
After receiving a call about a man with a stab wound, Laval patrol officers found the victim. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
Vick Sévère Paul was probably stabbed to death after a conflict that escalated on the night of May 7 near Place Bell in Laval.
Next to Ducarme Joseph
Sévère Paul was once considered a member of a red street gang in Montreal.
He was the brother of Lamartine Sévère Paul, a confidant of Chénier Dupuy who spoke out against the unification of the city’s street gangs in 2012.
Lamartine Sévère Paul and Chénier Dupuy were murdered within hours of each other in August of that year.
The Paul brothers were also the cousins of blue kingpin Ducarme Joseph, who was shot dead in August 2014.
In the late 2000s, Joseph and the Paul brothers were allegedly part of a group that protected and executed contracts for entrepreneur Antonio Magi.
Like several criminalized individuals, Vick Sévère Paul owned a condominium at 1000 de la Commune in Old Montreal, a real estate project developed by Magi.
The latter, suspected of ordering the murder of Nick Rizzuto, eldest son of the former godfather of the Montreal Mafia Vito Rizzuto, in December 2009, was murdered in January 2019, probably the victim of the Sicilians’ revenge.
Vick Sévère Paul was sentenced to two years less per day, specifically for drug trafficking, after he was arrested as part of Operation Loquace, which the Sûreté du Québec used in November 2012 to dismantle a syndicate of individuals attempting to break the monopoly on cocaine distribution to seize by force in Canada.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to La Presse’s mailing address.