Quebec provincial police make arrests in 4 Mafia killings

In what Quebec provincial police are calling a "major breakthrough" in its crackdown on organized crime, three men and a woman have been arrested in the deaths of four people with known ties to the Montreal Mafia.

"It's a major breakthrough because people think that we never end up solving murders related to organized crime," said Sret du Qubec Chief Insp. Guy Lapointe at a Montrealnews conference Wednesday.

As part of "Operation Prmditer," police conducted a series of raids in the greater Montreal region, including in Saint-Jude, east of Montreal, in Terrebonne, north of Laval, and on the island of Montreal itself.

They arrestedDominico Scarfo, Guy Dion, Marie-Jose Viau and Jonathan Massari. Dion is the fire chief of Saint-Jude, a village of 1,200, SQ sources confirmed to Radio-Canada.

Police also seized 19 long guns, six handguns, three automatic weapons, nearly 200 boxes of ammunition andtwo silencers, as well as materials to create explosives.

'Old conflict' as a backdrop

The three men and one women arrested in the raidsare believed to have conspired to kill Lorenzo Giordano, Rocco Sollecito, who were both found dead in Laval in 2016, and brothers Giuseppe and Vincenzo Falduto, who were reported missing in Montreal the same year.

The primary motive behind the 2016 murders was the acquisition of power, Lapointe said.

He said the killings occurred against abackdrop of "the old conflict that persists between Sicilians and Calabrians involved in traditional Italian organized crime."

Lapointealleges Massariled the conspiracy, along with a man named Salvatore Scoppa, who was himself killed in May.

• Mafia-linked Salvatore Scoppa killed in shooting at Sheraton Hotel in Laval

"The murder of Salvatore Scoppa earlier this year is basically payback from the Sicilians,as revenge forthese murders that were committed in 2016," Lapointe told CBC after the news conference at the SQ headquarters.

Lapointe explained that the "Sicilians" are part of the Rizzuto clan.

Experts say the death by natural causes of the Montreal Mafia's last known godfather, Vito Rizzuto, in 2013 created a power vacuumin Montreal, paving the way for rival clans to battle each other in the fight to come out on top.

But Lapointe said police hope these latest arrests and future pending arrestssignalthat investigators will continue to put pressure on the clans' criminal activities.

"We're making a very loud statement to organized crime that it doesn't matter what they do, eventually we'll catch them," he said.