Conor Vincent D'Monte is seen on this picture supplied by CFSEU-BC.
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO --
Final week, telephones throughout Puerto Rico started to ding as members of a non-public WhatsApp group devoted to serving to others within the U.S. territory stared at their screens in disbelief.
The businessman they knew as administrator of that chat — somebody who organized philanthropic efforts comparable to a Christmas toy drive for needy kids and renovations for an elementary college — had simply been arrested.
Conor Vincent D’Monte, who glided by Johnny Williams in Puerto Rico, was allegedly a frontrunner of a violent gang sought by Canadian authorities on fees together with first-degree homicide. He had been on the run for greater than a decade.
“It’s like a Netflix story,” stated Antonio Torres, chief deputy U.S. marshal for the district of Puerto Rico.
Authorities don’t know precisely when D’Monte, 44, arrived in Puerto Rico, however they consider he had been utilizing the alias “Johnny Williams” for at the least a number of months. The 6-foot, 1-inch fugitive settled right into a rural, japanese mountain neighborhood close to El Yunque rainforest, residing in a home on a avenue with no identify in a working-class neighbourhood, Torres stated.
Each month, D’Monte would accompany workers of a nonprofit group often known as Karma Honey Mission to a farmer’s market within the close by metropolis of Carolina, stated a girl who lived in the identical neighborhood and offered items subsequent to his stall. She declined to offer her identify out of worry.
“Nobody knew something,” she stated, including that she at all times was struck by his quiet demeanor. “We had been shocked.”
D'Monte stays in federal jail in Puerto Rico as he awaits an extradition course of. His public protection lawyer declined remark, however she famous in a court docket listening to on Thursday that D'Monte, who has Canadian and Irish citizenship, requested that the consulates of these international locations be notified.
Those that met D’Monte stated he by no means made any efforts to cover. He even met with Puerto Rico’s agriculture secretary and a neighborhood senator and was invited to the governor’s mansion final month for his position in making an attempt to avoid wasting honeybees after Hurricane Maria as a part of his involvement with the Karma Honey Mission, a nonprofit firm created in February 2019. Its president, Candice Galek, is a Miami entrepreneur and former mannequin. Neither Galek nor her firm returned messages for remark.
In its 2020 annual report, the latest one accessible, the corporate acknowledged that its quantity of enterprise didn't exceed $3 million. Its stability sheet reported no belongings or liabilities, based on filings with Puerto Rico’s Registry of Companies and Entities.
“The man fooled us all,” stated a Puerto Rican businessman who requested that his identify not be used out of worry.
He stated he met D’Monte within the early days of the pandemic after being added to his WhatsApp group, and that D’Monte was often known as “Johnny Tooth,” as a result of his enamel had been so white and straight. The businessman described D’Monte as a “super gross sales man” who was very jovial.
“It struck me that he didn’t have Fb or any of these issues as a result of he really was an amazing networker,” the businessman stated, including that D’Monte as soon as referred to as him asking if he might borrow a hammer since he was serving to restore a college.
When he was engaged on the Christmas toy drive, D'Monte messaged his WhatsApp group warning they had been 500 presents quick and that he was “grinding” to get donations as he famous that the costs went up 40% on the toy distributor warehouse: “Caught us off guard. Will determine it out. Universe conspires,” he wrote, including three completely different star emojis.
It’s unclear why D’Monte selected Puerto Rico or if he knew anybody within the U.S. territory.
He's accused within the killing of a rival gang member at a Vancouver strip mall in February 2009, at a time when that a part of British Columbia was experiencing one of many worst gang violence outbreaks in its historical past, based on a police assertion.
D’Monte is also accused of conspiring to homicide two alleged rival gang members often known as the Bacon Brothers, based on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The United Nations gang that D’Monte allegedly belongs to is taken into account one of the crucial highly effective ones in British Columbia and is greatest identified for exporting one of the crucial widespread marijuana strains within the U.S. mainland: the B.C. bud.
At its peak, the gang had an estimated 200 members, they usually typically sport tattoos of tigers, dragons and Chinese language characters. The gang additionally imports firearms and different medication together with cocaine, making tens of millions of dollars a yr, stated Keiron McConnell, a felony justice skilled and professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic College in Surrey, British Columbia.
“Anybody considering that Mr. D’Monte was a avenue nook hustler, it couldn’t be additional than the reality,” he stated in a cellphone interview. “Mr. D’Monte was a reasonably refined particular person.”
McConnell stated it’s extremely uncommon for fugitives to be on the run for so long as D’Monte and to efficiently assimilate themselves right into a neighborhood.
D’Monte, who police stated has travelled to Spain and Asia and allegedly is related to a drug community in Mexico, was final seen within the Vancouver space in January 2011. After that, he vanished till he reappeared in Puerto Rico greater than a decade later.
Torres, with the U.S. Marshals Service, stated high-profile fugitives typically assume the profile of a really rich individual as a result of they've the means.
“It doesn’t elevate any crimson flags,” he stated. “It is going to draw consideration, however not suspicion. They simply act like a businessman.”
Three weeks earlier than federal brokers arrested D’Monte, Torres stated his company lastly had collected sufficient info to establish the fugitive, noting they by no means obtained any ideas.
As D’Monte drove via the favored vacationer district of Isla Verde on Feb. 25, the brokers closed in.
“He acted shocked,” Torres stated, including that he didn’t resist arrest.
D’Monte was alone, aside from a 9mm at his aspect.
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