Montreal police and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) have arrested six more people in connection with two fatal shootings committed last year.
Five men aged 21 to 31 and a 27-year-old woman are added to the four individuals apprehended last week during the joint investigation, according to a Thursday news release by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).
Four of the newly arrested suspects were already behind bars, and their arrests took place at provincial detention facilities in Montreal and Rivière-des-Prairies, as well as at the federal centre in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.
The fifth man was arrested in Laval, Que., while the woman was arrested on Montreal’s South Shore.
Last June, a 32-year-old man was shot and killed in his parked car, an Audi Q8, in the Lanaudière region. An investigation led by Quebec provincial police suggested the man might have been a victim of mistaken identity.
On Aug. 7, 2023, a 28-year-old man was found lifeless on a sidewalk outside a bar on Ste-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal with multiple gunshot wounds. Police believe he might have been the intended target of the June shooting.
Montreal police say nine of the 10 people arrested since July 17 are said to be linked to a criminal street gang active in the Montreal region and all nine remain in custody.
“This is a major blow to the group, which has allegedly been involved in several shooting incidents in recent years,” the news release says.
“The investigation revealed that some of the arrested individuals conspired from detention facilities to order the two murders.”
In the same news release, Cmdr. Jean-Sébastien Caron, head of the SPVM’s major crimes unit, says it is “quite rare that we are able to gather so much evidence to charge so many members of the same gang in murder cases.”