Raynald Desjardins was born on October 2,1953 and is a prominent organized crime figure in Montreal, and a former associate of the Rizzuto crime family.
27 Facts About Raynald Desjardins
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Raynald Desjardins is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for his role in the 2011 murder of the acting boss of New York's Bonanno crime family, Salvatore Montagna.
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The French-Canadian Desjardins has been described as "the most influential non-Italian in the Montreal Mafia since William Obront and Armand Courville".
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Raynald Desjardins is not related to Andre Desjardins, a corrupt union boss turned loan shark.
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Raynald Desjardins was considered the "right-hand man" to Rizzuto family leader, Vito Rizzuto, and was once described by authorities as "the supplier of drugs" for the Montreal Mafia.
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Raynald Desjardins began his career in his teenage years working as a waiter in a Mafia-owned nightclub in Montreal.
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Raynald Desjardins was one of a small number of French-Canadians who became a senior member of the Montreal Mafia.
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Di Maulo's marriage to Raynald Desjardins's sister had given him a unique status within the organization despite being a non-Sicilian.
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In 1973, Raynald Desjardins accompanied Di Maulo and Paolo Violi to New York for the election of Philip Rastelli as the acting boss of the Bonanno family.
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Di Maulo and Raynald Desjardins later became a part of the Sicilian Rizzuto organization after the Rizzutos replaced the Calabrian Cotronis as the dominant organized crime group in Montreal.
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Raynald Desjardins' smuggling route was intended to avoid dealing with the Irish-Canadian West End Gang who ran the Port of Montreal.
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In 1987, on the advice of a Newfoundland criminal named Michael Hiscock, Raynald Desjardins decided that the ghost town of Ireland's Eye, located on a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland would be used for the operation's hand-offs.
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The RCMP alleged that Raynald Desjardins oversaw the family's relations with the Phalange and was in charge of the entire Lebanese hashish smuggling operation.
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At the time, Raynald Desjardins held a job as a sale representative for Amusements Deluxe, a Montreal company that supplied billiard tables, pinball machines and video games to bars and convenience stores all over Canada.
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Amusements Deluxe was mostly a cash business, and it has been alleged that the company was a front for the Rizzuto family, used to launder its profits, and that Raynald Desjardins was more than just a sales representative, but actually ran the company.
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Raynald Desjardins had ties to outlaw biker gangs, and in 1993, he was arrested as part of an RCMP investigation called "Operation Jaggy" for his role in the attempted import of 700 kilos of cocaine from Venezuela together with the Hells Angels.
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On 9 July 1993, Raynald Desjardins called Rizzuto on his cell phone, saying he needed to see him right away; the RCMP who were listening in noted that Raynald Desjardins was the only associate of Rizzuto who did not use the formal and respectful tone when addressing him, indicating that he had power within the Rizzuto family.
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On 25 August 1993, Raynald Desjardins was arrested as part of Operation Jaggy, and refused the Crown's offer of a plea bargain in exchange for testifying against Rizzuto.
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At the time of his arrest, Raynald Desjardins exposed a corrupt RCMP officer, Jean Lord, whom he revealed had been trying to sell him information, which he hoped would lead to a reduced sentence.
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Raynald Desjardins later pleaded guilty on October 24,1994, to being part of a conspiracy to bring up to 5,000 kilos of cocaine into Canada, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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Raynald Desjardins called himself a "good friend" of Jocelyn Dupuis, a senior FTQ union official, saying the FTQ union helped to make construction at his sites "go smoothly".
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Raynald Desjardins later entered into a plea bargain and was incarcerated until 2012.
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On September 16,2011, Raynald Desjardins was the target of a failed assassination attempt when a gunman opened fire on him as he was driving near his Laval home.
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Wiretap evidence indicated that Raynald Desjardins suspected Montagna of the failed attempt on his life.
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In 2015, Raynald Desjardins was the target of another assassination plot, by Maurice Boucher, head of the Nomads chapter of the Montreal Hells Angels.
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Raynald Desjardins pleaded guilty in 2015 to a reduced charge of conspiracy to commit murder, and the following year, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
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At the time of the sentencing, Raynald Desjardins had served "at least the equivalent of a seven-and-a-half-year prison term", since his arrest.