The Quebec government has awarded a contract to a company that operates an illegal dump and is owned by someone close to organized crime, our Bureau of Investigation discovered.
The Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) has awarded an over-the-counter contract to Location Tri-Box to bury wood chips and soil removed from the site of a future secondary school in Saint-Jérôme.
The SQI does not seem to have done much research before granting the $33,300 warrant last August to the company of Roberto Scoppa, brother of mobsters Andrew and Salvatore Scoppa, both murdered in 2019.
A simple check on the website of the Ministry of the Environment would have allowed the SQI to know that Tri-Box was operating its soil deposit illegally.
Fines and Notices
In January 2020, Tri-Box had already received a $10,000 fine for disposing of contaminated soil on its land located in an agricultural zone in Mirabel.
These contained more arsenic, zinc, fluoranthene and pyrene than the allowable limits.
“Since 2019, the [ministry] has sent three notices of non-compliance to Location Tri-Box for having deposited contaminated soil, for having backfilled a wetland and for having set up residual materials recovery facilities without authorization”, a indicated Frédéric Fournier, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment.
Concrete and brick residues are notably on its site.
In addition to these breaches of law, the situation is serious enough that the department wishes to file criminal charges against Tri-Box. “The file is currently at the [Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions] DPCP for analysis,” added Mr. Fournier.
The SQI admits that it did not check with the Ministry of the Environment before concluding the agreement.
“This contract did not require a public call for tenders and Tri-Box presented itself as a company that could reclaim the land,” replies Martin Roy, spokesperson for the SQI. The contract provides for the company’s obligation to comply with all legislation and regulations in force.
“It will be removed”
Roberto Scoppa wanted to meet with us in the presence of his lawyer. During this interview, he admitted that he has still not complied with the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment since his sanction, at the beginning of 2020.
He blamed another company for bringing contaminated soil to him in 2019. Soil that was still on his land at the end of April.
“Everything that needs to be removed will be removed this year. All the crushed stone, the rest of [soils] contaminated, argued Mr. Scoppa. Do I still accept concrete and things like that? No. »
Asked if he had accepted concrete or brick since his fine from the ministry, Mr. Scoppa replied: “Maybe one or two trucks that we could not turn around”.
He also disputes the ministry’s claims about wetlands and assures that he has the right to crush concrete and brick on site, to use them as the basis of a road on which trucks travel.
– With the collaboration of Eric Thibault
The two co-founders of Location Tri-Box, Roberto Scoppa and Jonathan Borbely, were also involved in another controversial landfill company, G
Scoppa and Borbely were partners there in 2015, a few months before founding Tri-Box.
The owners of G
In particular, they received prison sentences in 2006 for having been important actors in the riot which followed the fire at the house of Grand Chief James Gabriel and for having kidnapped 67 police officers from the Mohawk Nation.
In 2009, Gary Gabriel was also caught in a drug bust against organized crime. Hundreds of cannabis plants and several weapons had been seized.
More recently, last July, Gary Gabriel was talking in his cannabis dispensary with gang leader Arsène Mompoint when the latter was shot dead.
License revoked
Roberto Scoppa claimed he didn’t know the Gabriel brothers ‘at all’ before joining G
“I didn’t know they were criminals,” he said. I knew Jonathan Borbely, who brought me to his father [Editor’s note Stephen Borbely, another partner of G
Mr. Scoppa says he “never had contact” with the Gabriel brothers, except when he decided to leave the company because he was not making any money. He claims he came out of G
In 2020, the license of G
“Black water” from the mountains of waste was discharged directly into the environment without treatment, La Presse reported last fall.
During a visit in 2020, one of the site associates also mentioned to the inspectors “that they are no longer welcome on the site of the sorting center to do their inspection”.
Roberto Scoppa has recently been in the police sights because of his family ties. He is the brother of mobsters Andrew and Salvatore Scoppa, both murdered in 2019.
◆ Andrew was considered by police to be the acting boss of the Montreal Mafia between 2014 and 2015, some time after the death of godfather Vito Rizzuto.
◆ Salvatore Scoppa would have ordered several murders, including that of the mafioso Rocco Sollecito.
Before their assassination, the police placed Roberto Scoppa alongside his brothers in the organization chart of the Montreal mafia. In 2015, police surprised two encounters between Andrew and Roberto as part of his tailing of the Estacade project.
In an interview, Roberto Scoppa agreed that he had been associated with the criminal cases of his brothers in the past, but claims to have been out of it for a long time.
He claimed never to have spoken with his brother Salvatore “since 2011-2012”. “We fought to the punches and we never spoke to each other again,” he says.
As for his brother Andrew, he first said he had not spoken to him since 2013. “Since Vito [Rizzuto] died, I haven’t spoken to him again, because I saw things happen that I didn’t. I didn’t like it,” he swears. He then claimed that Andrew approached him “a few times” after that. “I didn’t want to be part of their business,” he says.
Our research also shows that Roberto Scoppa registered Tri-Box, in 2015, at the address of a residence belonging to his brother Andrew.
That year, the three Scoppa brothers had businesses registered at this address.
Roberto Scoppa explained that he uses this address, where his mother lives, because he rents a room there to store his business documents, for which he has no place at home.
In January 2019, Roberto Scoppa traveled with the Hells Angels Martin Robert, according to police information to which our Bureau of Investigation had access.
Martin Robert is considered by police forces to be the most influential member of the Hells Angels in Quebec. Arrested in 2009 in connection with Operation SharQc, after a nine-month run, he spent five years in prison for conspiracy to murder.
Roberto Scoppa said it was by chance that he ended up at the same hotel as the Hells Robert, in Cartagena, Colombia. He explained that he was vacationing there with his family.
“I was not on the same plane as this man. I just saw him eat at the next table and told my wife he looked like the guy on TV. We looked on Google and she told me it was him. So I told him that every time he came we would change tables. I don’t want to be associated with him because those are the people who are against my brothers. »
Mr Scoppa maintained that in 2019 he had not had contact with his brothers for years.
“Surely I’m not going there with him [Martin Robert]? Are you crazy? This was when the war [between different organized crime clans] was starting and I would sit with someone who is connected to other people? Think a little? »
Twelve convictions
Roberto Scoppa pleaded guilty to no less than 12 criminal offenses in the 1990s and 2000s, in six different cases.
These include possession of drugs (including cocaine and heroin) and possession of equipment to unlawfully intercept communications.
In one of these cases, the judge even banned him for life from possessing certain weapons.
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