Article content

A man from the Mauricie region expressed relief at the Montreal courthouse on Friday as he was sentenced to a 30-month prison term for transporting cocaine and cash while drug traffickers were under investigation in Project Magot.

Yann Lamarche, 34, of St-Mathieu-du-Parc, a small town north of Shawinigan, told Superior Court Justice Marc David he was relieved to have finally put his case behind him even though he was heading straight to a federal penitentiary.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Man caught transporting cocaine during Mafia probe gets 30 months Back to video

“I wanted to settle this long ago,” Lamarche said during his sentence hearing.

Lamarche was first arrested in September 2014, along with another man, while Regional Integrated Squad based in Trois-Rivières were investigating a large-scale cocaine transaction. When the accused were pulled over, police found a kilogram of the narcotic inside their vehicle along with more than $109,000 in cash. Lamarche was not charged until November 2015, when arrests were made in Project Magot, a lengthy investigation into several organized crime figures, including alleged Montreal Mafia leaders Leonardo Rizzuto, 48, and Stefano Sollecito, 49. Eighteen people in all ended up being charged in Project Magot.