Chomedey murder victim linked to $40 million fraud operation

Backpack betrays burglar, firemen find grow-op


By Robert Frank
www.thesuburban.com

When Laval police responded to a 911 call about a suspicious car behind 1860 100th Avenue, just after midnight, July 3, they found an empty Mercedes CLS luxury sedan with the driver’s door wide open and the lights on.

“The engine wasn’t running,” recalled Const. Franco di Genova. “With no one inside the vehicle, the patrol officers checked the perimeter.”

Fifty metres away, he said, they found 32-year-old Hiros Glonessian, bleeding profusely from a wound to his upper body.

“They tried to stop the bleeding as best they could, and called for a doctor and Urgences santé assistance without delay,” he said. “The doctor arrived but pronounced him dead at the scene.”

Although the man was not known to Laval police, Const. di Genova said that he was one of 22 people arrested in April during a Montreal police dragnet centred in St. Laurent called Operation Painter “which involved a $40 million fraud.”

Three weeks earlier, Glonessian had pleaded guilty to two credit card theft charges stemming from the arrest and was sentenced to a year on probation.

Police have questioned his girlfriend, who lives in the premises next to where he was killed, as well as other family members.

Backpack betrays burglar


A half-hour or so after midnight, June 27, an employee locking up the Bedco premises in the industrial park at Francis Hugues and Cunard in Chomedey, noticed a silhouette in the second floor window.

“When he reached the second floor to check, he heard a door close, and saw a truck leaving very rapidly,” reported Const. di Genova. “He then turned on the lights and saw that a burglar had been preparing to load computers and a large-screen television into the truck.”

“When police arrived, they found a backpack, containing a wallet with the medicare card and drivers’ permit of an 18-year-old St. Eustache man,” he explained. “Laval detectives have since visited his home to talk to him.”

Laval des Rapides plantation burns

When Laval firefighters ventilated heavy smoke from a fire at 115 6th avenue, June 23, it was just as well that they didn’t inhale.

Once they doused the flames, the billowing plumes turned out to have originated from an abandoned hydroponic marijuana farm.

“The plantation had all of the equipment that we normally see, replete with irrigation pumps and grow-lights,” said Const. di Genova. “Firefighters notified police who confiscated $3,000 worth of cannabis plus 179 marijuana plants.”

“Fully grown marijuana plants have a street value of about $1,000 each,” he explained.