One dead in Montreal-area Starbucks shooting possibly linked to organized crime

LAVAL — One person died and two were injured in a daylight shooting at a Montreal-area Starbucks on Wednesday that the province’s public security minister linked to organized crime.

Provincial police spokesperson Laurie Avoine said the man who died was in his 40s. Officials said the lives of the other two victims were not in danger.

Earlier in the day, Quebec’s public security minister said authorities believed organized crime was behind the shooting.

Ian Lafrenière said the shooting took place at around 10:30 a.m. at a commercial plaza in Laval, Que.

“This is very concerning,” wrote Lafrenière, who is a former police officer. “I am following the situation closely with my colleagues, while a major police deployment is underway.”

He told reporters in Quebec City that there were no “innocent” victims, according to the information he’d received at the time.

Laval police Chief Pierre Brochet wouldn’t confirm multiple media reports that the victim was organized crime figure Charalambos Theologou, nicknamed “Bobby the Greek.”

“I knew this individual by reputation, it’s an individual related to organized crime,” Brochet said.

Quebec provincial police, who have taken over the investigation from Laval police, said the shooting could be tied to organized crime but wouldn’t confirm.

Avoine told reporters on the scene that the victims were possibly connected to each other.

There were no arrests as of Wednesday afternoon.

Police set up a security perimeter in the area of the shooting, which occurred at a commercial plaza near a busy highway.

Several ambulances were on-site, and officers could be seen speaking with witnesses in a nearby restaurant.

Brochet told a late-afternoon news conference that a daytime shooting in a busy place was “unacceptable, shocking and intolerable.” He said police would increase their visibility in the coming days and also put pressure on organized crime in the territory.

Laval Mayor Stéphane Boyer expressed condolences to the coffee shop’s clients and employees, “who had to live through a scene that was absolutely horrible and traumatizing.”

He also tried to reassure citizens that the city was safe, adding that the numbers of gun crimes and attempted murders had dropped by about half in recent years.

“Four years ago, there were 70 events involving guns on our territory,” Boyer said. “Last year, we were down to 47.” Murders and attempted murders dropped from 25 to 11 in a similar time frame, he said.

“So it’s going in the right direction, but of course we don’t take anything for granted,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2025.