Police sources say the man who was shot dead in a Pierrefonds parking lot Monday morning is Andrea Scoppa, a man with alleged ties to the Montreal Mafia.
Montreal police were called at around 8 a.m. to Place Montico at the corner of St-Jean Boulevard and Harry-Worth Street. Officers found Scoppa lying in a pool of his own blood. Police say his death was confirmed at the scene.
Scoppa, in his 50’s, is the brother of Salvatore Scoppa, the man at the head of a criminal cell allegedly responsible for four murders in 2016. Several suspects in connection to those murders and Scoppa’s death were arrested last week.
Salvatore Scoppa was killed in a brazen attack inside the Sheraton hotel in Laval in May.
Quebec provincial police believe Salvatore Scoppa’s killing was in response to the four murders also linked to Montreal Mafia.
The suspects arrested last week face charges in the slayings of brothers Vincenzo Falduto and Giuseppe Falduto, as well as the deaths of Lorenzo Giordano and Rocco Sollecito.
“There’s an obvious war going on between the various factions of the underworld in the Montreal area,” said John Galianos, a former Sûreté du Québec officer who worked as a polygraph examiner in several mafia-related crimes.
“There’s different factions, they don’t like each other and since Vito Rizzuto is gone, they’re trying to muscle in the action.”
Investigators with Montreal police’s major crimes unit are looking for witnesses in the death of Andrea Scoppa and are going through security footage. The parking lot is closed for the investigation.
–With files from Global’s Phil Carpenter and Olivia O’Malley