Five await sentences for drug-trafficking conspiracy

Five people arrested in Project Colisée, including four who worked at the Dorval airport, are expected to be sentenced Friday for their roles in a series of conspiracies to smuggle cocaine into the country for mob-tied traffickers.

And if a decision rendered Thursday by Quebec Court Judge Claude Parent is any indication, all five are looking at potentially harsh sentences.

On Thursday, Parent sentenced Marco Pedicelli, 40, an Air Canada baggage handler while he was investigated in Project Colisée, to the equivalent of a 6-year prison term. In May, Parent found Pedicelli guilty of being involved in two failed attempts to smuggle drugs through Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

In one conspiracy Pedicelli was supposed to recover a bag off a flight from Jamaica and place it in a locker he shared with a co-accused who has yet to be tried in Colisée. It is believed the bag never arrived but Pedicelli was seen looking for it in an area of the airport accessible only to certain employees.

In another plot, Pedicelli was recorded on wiretaps planning to smuggle cocaine expected to come in from Dominic Republic. The co-conspirator in that plot was Rodolfo (Rudy) Ignoto, 43, also an Air Canada employee at the time of the investigation and a key middleman at the airport for the drug traffickers.

Parent noted Pedicelli’s abuse of the privileged position his job gave him to access certain areas of the airport as an aggravating factor in his case. Parent also mentioned that the planning involved, especially the plot with Ignoto, carried over a long period of time.

Ignoto instructed several other airport employees while helping Giuseppe Torre and Ray Kanho, two men who were smuggling cocaine through the airport and paying the Montreal Mafia a so-called tax for the privilege.

Ignoto is currently serving an 11-year prison term while Torre and Kanho are both serving 14-year prison terms.

All of the five people scheduled to be sentenced today were linked to Ignoto in some way. His cousin Emilio Rafeli, 32, held a managerial position with Globe Ground North America, a company that removes baggage from certain flights at the airport. On May 26, Parent found Rafeli guilty on charges in one part of the investigation where Ignoto instructed him to watch for how Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) dealt with flights coming in from certain countries.

When Rafeli reported to Ignoto that arriving planes were not given any special attention the pair worked out a scenario where a piece of luggage would be placed on a specific part of a plane. Rafeli practised the scenario on at least two airplanes, trying to determine a precise moment where he would be alone while he and his team removed luggage from a plane.

A piece of luggage was supposed to be placed on a Sky Service flight that arrived at the airport on April 22, 2005. Rafeli never had a chance to put what he practised to work. CBSA agents removed all the luggage from the airplane and x-rayed each item. However, to everyone’s surprise, the cocaine never made it on board.