Police probe shooting of man with alleged Mafia links

The Laval police and the Sûreté du Québec are investigating the attempted murder of a man with alleged ties to the Montreal Mafia who was shot in broad daylight.

Laval police spokesperson Geneviève Major said the victim, a man in his 40s, was shot in the abdomen around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday on Lévesque Blvd. E., several blocks east of Highway 25.

Tuesday evening, the SQ said the victim suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

A police source has confirmed to the Montreal Gazette that the victim is Davide (Baldy) Barberio, 42, who was charged in 2014 in Project Clemenza, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation that targeted drug trafficking among different groups within the Montreal Mafia.

According to information that came out in court in Project Clemenza, Barberio used to work under Giuseppe De Vito, the influential Montreal Mafia leader who was poisoned by cyanide on July 8, 2013, while he was serving time in a federal penitentiary.

While he was charged in at least nine cases filed in Project Clemenza, Barberio was part of a large group that saw all the charges against them dropped after the prosecution announced, in 2017, that it would no longer prosecute many of the accused. It was believed that the cases were dropped because the RCMP refused to divulge the methods it used to intercept thousands of text messages the suspects believed were encrypted.