Log in & Sign up
You are not logged in.
The body of Hasan Eroglu lies covered in a backyard near Lakeshore Rd, one year ago today, when he was shot to death.
A year later, backyard 'hit' still unsolved
Hasan Eroglu's life ended in gunfire in the leafy neighbourhood of Valois Bay
PAUL CHERRY
The Gazette
Saturday, July 5, 2008
The body of Hasan Eroglu lies covered in a backyard near Lakeshore Rd, one year ago today, when he was shot to death.
Lakeshore Rd., as it runs through Pointe Claire, is one of
the last places on Earth one would associate with a mob hit.
With its view of tranquil Valois Bay and the well-manicured lawns
that line the winding road where people take leisurely evening
strolls, this part of the West Island is generally a peaceful
community.
But an unsolved killing a year ago today in the backyard of a home
on Lakeshore is believed to be a Montreal Mafia settling of
accounts.
Police sources say the victim, 39-year-old Hasan Eroglu, was killed
in a dispute over drug trafficking turf in Montreal.
Sources say Eroglu ignored warnings he was trafficking in someone
else's territory.
Officially, the Montreal police major crimes division will only say
Eroglu's death is believed to be tied to organized crime.
However, Eroglu also had personal ties to a mysterious woman with
close links to Montreal's underworld.
Eroglu was shot behind a home near Lakebreeze Ave. early July 5,
2007. A gun was found nearby and neighbours reported many late-night
comings and goings at the home.
Background about Eroglu is scant.
In 1997, he pleaded guilty to an assault and was fined. Three years
later, he was picked up with four other people and charged with
being part of a heroin trafficking ring that the Montreal police
believed took in $4 million a year.
A year after his arrest, Eroglu was cleared of a conspiracy charge
in the case. But his friend, Necati Ozdemir, 44, was convicted and
sentenced to a four-year prison term as the head of the network in
northern Montreal.
Eroglu and Ozdemir lived in the same apartment building in St.
Léonard and, while seeking bail, claimed to work in the same
restaurant.
After being released from a penitentiary in 2002, Ozdemir
disappeared while he was out on parole and wasn't found for more
than two years.
Ozdemir resurfaced in 2004 while the Montreal police were
investigating another network of heroin dealers operating downtown.
When police searched his apartment on Sherbrooke St. E., they found
evidence that Ozdemir was very concerned for his safety. Hidden in
his bed was an AK47 assault rifle.
In 2006, convicted a second time for trafficking heroin, Ozdemir
had a 30-month prison term tacked onto the sentence he received in
2002.
On March 27, 2007, he was granted statutory release but was
returned to the penitentiary after failing a drug test 12 days after
Eroglu was killed.
According to a parole board report, Ozdemir, who is still behind
bars, said he was using drugs after "hearing the news that a former
accomplice was the victim of a settling of accounts." Eroglu's ties
to the mysterious woman draw another link to organized crime.
In December, the Toronto Star published an article based on its
investigation of that woman, Lucy Couto, who is being sought for
ignoring an Ontario court order to pay more than $50,000 in child
support to a daughter she had with an Ontario man who has cancer.
According to the article, Ontario's Family Responsibility Office
traced Couto to Montreal and she lived with Eroglu until the end of
2006 in a posh penthouse apartment on Lakeshore, just a short drive
from where he was killed.
Couto, who is known to use many aliases, went by the name Lucie
Alves while she and Eroglu shared the penthouse.
In 2003, using the name Alves, she opened an immigration consulting
business, A.C.T. Immigration Services. According to the Quebec
business registry, the company is still active, but it lists a
fictional address in Montreal.
Couto was known as Lucy Da Silva in 1991 when she sparked an
international fiasco.
While working as an immigration consultant, she promised to secure
landed immigrant status for several refugee claimants from Portugal
and Brazil who had been living in Toronto for years.
Charging each person $2,000 plus airfare, Couto arranged to fly the
refugee claimants to Mexico, where her plan was to have them
approach the Canadian embassy and apply for legal re-entry into
Canada if they could prove they had guaranteed offers of employment.
The plan failed and Couto ended up in jail in Mexico. She had
improvised after the embassy refused to see 31 of her clients and
packed them onto a bus in a failed effort get them across the
Mexican border and into Texas.
Many of her clients ended up being deported. Couto eventually
pleaded guilty in 1992 to immigration fraud in Toronto and served a
90-day prison term.
Citing affidavits filed in Couto's custody case, the Toronto Star
highlighted allegations that her criminal activity continued while
living in Montreal after she served her sentence.
The Gazette has also found court documents that link Couto to Malts
Financing, a mortgage and loan company in Laval that was
investigated during Projet Colisée, the Combined Forces Special
Enforcement Unit probe into the Montreal Mafia.
The investigation linked the company to Giuseppe Torre, a
37-year-old Laval resident who was arrested in Projet Colisée and is
facing drug trafficking charges.
(Malts is an acronym derived from the names of the company's
owners; the T stands for Torre). He is alleged to have used the
company while pretending to draw a legitimate salary and to launder
money for other people arrested in Projet Colisée.
An affidavit filed in 2004 in a civil court case in Laval details
how Couto, using the name Lucia Alves, borrowed more than $41,000
from Malts Financing at an annual interest rate of 46.9 per cent
"for commercial purposes." In December 2006, months before Eroglu
was killed, she suddenly stopped making payments on the loan and
disappeared. The contract required Alves to pay back the capital and
interest immediately if she missed two consecutive payments.
"She did not take the time to return numerous calls made by (Malts
Financing)," the company claimed in its lawsuit.
On March 1, 2007, the company sent a bailiff to Alves's last known
address, on Dr. Penfield Ave., to serve her with a notice.
The bailiff was greeted by a woman who identified herself as
Samantha Da Silva and claimed she didn't know Lucia Alves. Couto is
believed to have use the same trick when investigators tracked her
down in Montreal for not paying her child-support.
By the time Malt Financing filed its lawsuit, in June 2007, the
company claimed Alves owed more than $70,000. When she failed to
show up in August, the court declared the debt valid and ordered her
to pay - if she ever turns up again.