The men were arrested late in September after the Sûreté du Québec located James and Sandra Helm, a couple in their 70s, inside a rented house in Magog.
At least three of the five men charged at the Montreal courthouse in connection with how a couple were abducted from their homes in northern New York and smuggled into Canada, allegedly through the Akwesasne Reserve, are scheduled to begin a three-day bail hearing on Tuesday.
The men were arrested in late September after the Sûreté du Québec located James and Sandra Helm, a couple in their 70s, inside a rented house in Magog, a town 125 kilometres southeast of Montreal, that was rented by a man who was out on parole when he was arrested and charged with the kidnapping. According to an affidavit filed in a U.S. courthouse, police believe James and Sandra Helm were abducted as part of an extortion plot to have their grandson return 50 kilograms of cocaine that, unknown to the kidnappers, had been seized in a bust by Drug Enforcement Administration officers days earlier.
Graigory Brown, an American who is charged in a U.S. District Court in connection with the abduction, was denied bail on Oct. 13.
The five who are charged at the Montreal courthouse all have ties to large-scale drug trafficking:
Franco D’Onofrio, 54, Magog: On April 24, 2009, D’Onofrio rented a car for a day in Montreal. Later that same day, the Ontario Provincial Police pulled him over in the same car as he drove eastbound on Highway 401 in Edwardsburgh Township, about 80 kilometres west of Cornwall. He was stopped for driving erratically, but police found 91 bricks of cocaine in the rear-seat footwells of the car as well as in the trunk. Police ultimately determined D’Onofrio was transporting nearly 112 kilograms of cocaine estimated to be worth up to $15 million on the black market. The OPP also found six cellular phones inside the car, but they contained no evidence of where D’Onofrio picked up the cocaine or where it was supposed to be delivered.
D’Onofrio later claimed to the Parole Board of Canada that he agreed to deliver the cocaine to settle a debt. On Jan. 27, 2012, he was sentenced to a 14-year prison term. D’Onofrio appealed the sentence but was ordered to start serving it in 2013 when the appeal was rejected. He was granted full parole on the sentence in April 2018 and was still on parole when police found the Helms in a house D’Onofrio was renting in Magog.
Gary Arnold, 52, Godmanchester: In March 2019, Arnold finished serving an 80-month prison term for his leading role in a network of smugglers who operated in the Haut St-Laurent region as they brought large quantities of contraband cigarettes into Canada and smuggled out kilos of Quebec-grown cannabis. He was charged in 2012 in Operation Hachoir, an investigation that revealed, according to a court decision, that Arnold had “for several years before (his arrest) established a monopoly and also exercised control of the Canadian-U.S. border through the Akwesasne Reserve.”
George Dritsas, 65, and Kosmas Dritsas, 49, both of Town of Mount Royal: On Sept. 22, 2010, Montreal resident George Dritsas and his son Kosmas were among nine people arrested following a year-long investigation centring on a drug-trafficking network that included members of the Rock Machine biker gang who were hoping to compete with the Hells Angels in Winnipeg. The probe centred on an abandoned building in Winnipeg where Kosmas Dritsas processed and distributed cocaine. He was the only one of the nine arrested to take their case to a trial. He was convicted and, during a sentence hearing in April 2013, the Crown at a Winnipeg courthouse sought to have him sentenced to up to 20 years. Four months later, Dritsas ended up with a sentence that left him with a prison term of just under nine years.
When he went before the Parole Board of Canada in 2017, Kosmas Dritsas denied he was involved in dealing cocaine and claimed he only sold cannabis with his father, who is described in a written summary of the parole decision as having “an extensive history of engaging in the drug trade.” Like D’Onofrio, Kosmas Dritsas was out on full parole when he was arrested as a suspect in the kidnapping.
Taylor Lawrence Martin, 36, Akwesasne: The youngest member of the group is the son of John (Rocky) Skidders, 55, a man who was convicted of possessing a large quantity of cannabis on the Akwesasne Reserve in the past. On Dec. 8, 2006, the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service searched Skidders’s home as well as a storage container nearby. They found approximately 100 pounds of cannabis packed into a hockey bag inside the container and Skidders was charged with three counts related to drug trafficking. According to a decision made by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2010, Martin testified in his father’s defence and claimed he stored the cannabis in the container for drug traffickers and that his father had no knowledge of it. The appeal was dismissed and Skidders ended up serving a two-year prison term for the pot.
