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More than 20 years ago, longtime Laval resident Michele Torre made a trip to Toronto to pick up a sealed container on orders from one of the most powerful Mob bosses in Canada.

The container originated from Peru, but police in Canada were aware of its destination well before it arrived in New Jersey, the cargo’s last stop before crossing the Canadian border. U.S. Customs removed the 170 kilograms of cocaine and resealed the container before sending it on to Ontario. When Torre arrived in Toronto, he had no idea he was preparing to pick up an empty container and was arrested on the spot, on April 17, 1996, as part of a lengthy investigation, dubbed Project Choke, into a Mafia clan in Montreal led by Frank Cotroni (who is now deceased).

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Twenty years later, Torre’s role in the cocaine smuggling conspiracy is part of the basis of an order, issued by the federal government, seeking to have him removed from Canada, where he is a permanent resident and has resided since 1967, and returned to Italy where he is a citizen. Since learning of the removal order in 2014, Torre has maintained he didn’t know there was cocaine in the container but conceded, in 2014, he assumed it was “something shady.” Before he was arrested, along with Cotroni and 16 other men, Torre had worked at Pub Sinatra on Jarry St. E. in St-Léonard, which the Cotroni clan used as a hangout during the early 1990s.