Murder and rivalry: The intercepted BlackBerry messages of the mob

The morning that Salvatore Montagna, one-time boss of the Bonanno crime family, was shot three times and died on a snowy river bank ‎outside Montreal, his archenemy Raynald Desjardins was having breakfast elsewhere in town with his daughter and chatting about her wedding photo album.

Shortly after the killing, Mr. Desjardins sent a terse Blackberry message to his associate, Vittorio Mirarchi: “Done.”

“Perfect,” came the reply.

Police who were wiretapping Mr. Desjardin’s mobile phones immediately suspected he was behind the 2011 murder.

The next evening, Nov. 25, 2011, an RCMP sergeant, a member of Special I, the section handling electronic intercepts, arrived outside Mr. Desjardins’ house with a portable device that tracked cellular signals and tried to identify what other mobile phones were inside.

It was part of a 16-month surveillance operation that led police to charge Mr. Desjardins and seven others in connection with the murder of Mr. Montagna.

The suspects, who thought their Blackberry messages were secure, did not realize the RCMP read their words as they plotted against their enemies.

However, the technology that police used to build their case also became its Achilles’ heel, with the prosecution agreeing to a plea earlier this year on lesser charges rather than revealing more in court about the RCMP’s cellphone-tracking devices.

On Friday, a judge lifted a publication ban on the court proceedings, revealing for the first time details of a case that pitted old-style mob violence and state-of-the-art surveillance technology.

This is the story of the men who tried to claim power while the Godfather of the Montreal Mafia was in prison, a rare peek into the city’s underworld during a violent, volatile time.

Rizzuto’s confidante

Mr. Desjardins, was a long-time associate of the late Vito Rizzuto, the most powerful Mafia don in Canada.

Mr. Desjardins said in court that he met Mr. Rizzuto in 1979. It was around that time that the Sicilian-born Mr. Rizzuto took over the Montreal Mafia, which until then was run by Calabrians.

The Quebec-born Mr. Desjardins became a close confidant of Mr. Rizzuto, according to court documents.

“Since you were young, you’ve moved up in the world of the Sicilian Mafia. You adopted their values, espoused their way of life and practised their criminal activities,” a 2000 parole board decision said about Mr. Desjardins.

For years, police tried to nab the two men.

In 1987, Mr. Rizzuto and Mr. Desjardins were charged with smuggling 16 tonnes of Lebanese hashish to Newfoundland.

The case collapsed after the RCMP was caught trying to record the conversations of the accused and their lawyers in their St. John’s hotel during the trial.

In 1993, Mr. Desjardins was arrested for conspiring to import 700 kilos of cocaine from Venezuela.

He got a 15-year sentence. Mr. Rizzuto, who was heard on wiretaps, was not charged.

Afterward, Mr. Desjardins boasted that he had gone to prison for Mr. Rizzuto, Montreal police investigator Nicodemo Milano later testified at an inquiry.

By the time Mr. Desjardins was released in 2004, his mentor was behind bars, awaiting extradition to the United States for his role in a triple murder in Brooklyn.

Mr. Rizzuto’s arrest started a decade of turmoil in Montreal’s underworld, as his clan was weakened by murders and police crackdowns.

A new player appeared in Montreal to claim the throne: Mr. Montagna.

Born in Canada, he had lived in New York since he was a teen and was nicknamed “Sal the Iron Worker” because he owned an ironworks company.

In 2006, U.S. law enforcement agencies in New York first alleged that Mr. Montagna had become the acting boss of the Bonanno family.

Because he had only Canadian citizenship, U.S. officials deported him in April, 2009, putting him on a flight to Montreal.

‎Mr. Desjardins said in a interview with the newspaper La Presse that he stayed clean after his release from jail, earning a living in the construction and condo business.

However, the Charbonneau inquiry into corruption in the construction industry heard that he had managed to gain influence in a trade union.

Labour organizer Ken Pereira testified that he complained that his boss at the FTQ-Construction union, Jocelyn Dupuis, was inflating his expense claims. Mr. Pereira was then summoned to a meeting with Mr. Desjardins.

“Listen, Ken,” Mr. Pereira said Mr. Desjardins told him. “I don’t know if you know, but I did 11 years in prison. I kept my mouth shut, I did my time, and that’s the way it should be.”

Mr. Pereira testified that he got scared. “At that moment, I discovered that Jocelyn Dupuis, who I thought was the boss, wasn’t the boss. Raynald Desjardins was the boss.”