Police say they launched investigation after a series of deadly overdoses at notorious Motel St-Jacques.
Quebec’s prosecution service has seized a notorious western Montreal motel whose owner, police say, benefited from drug sales and prostitution at the establishment.
After several deadly drug overdoses at the motel, near the southwestern tip of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and a rise in alleged criminal activity there, police felt they had to act, said Cmdr. Stéphane Desroches, who heads the local police station.
“In the last two years, we had three deaths by overdose with fentanyl,” he said.
The 31-room motel on a dead-end street off Rue St-Jacques has long been known to police. Desroches said he remembers responding to calls at the hotel when he was a patrol officer 25 years ago, but the situation has gotten worse. He said he was increasingly concerned about the safety of the motel’s residents and those nearby.
Police interventions had grown after the pandemic, accompanied by a rise in drug overdoses, he said.
The number of calls to police from the hotel rose to 126 in 2020 from 66 in 2019, police said in a court document, and has risen yearly since then, reaching 177 in 2023. So far this year, police have been called to the hotel 94 times.
Cases investigated at the motel have involved drugs, he said, but also guns and sexual exploitation.
About one in four arrest warrants executed by Desroches’s officers at Station 9, which serves N.D.G., Hampstead, Côte-St-Luc and Montreal West, are executed at the hotel, according to a court document.
In March, police launched a proceeds of crime investigation targeting the building, Desroches said. That led to a court order last week identifying the building as “offence-related property,” preventing its owner from selling or transferring it. The order also allows the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales to take it over, which is a step toward permanently confiscating the property, according to the DPCP.
The order also bars the motel’s owner, Jitendrakumar Patel, known as “Jack,” and one his employees, who police allege was involved in drug trafficking, from the property and gives permanent residents of the hotel two weeks to leave.
On June 20, one day after the order was issued, police raided the building and served the court order. Desroches said that while members of the tactical intervention unit — the SWAT team — were present, police also brought social workers to help residents who have mental-health issues, problems with drug abuse or have been victims sexual exploitation.
Workers from the borough, the regional health authority, as well as victims services and Indigenous outreach workers were present and social workers are continuing to visit as residents leave, he said.
In an affidavit submitted to the court by police, Det.-Sgt. Marie-Andrée Brûlé said three undercover operations, where officers posed as a pimp and a prostitute, as well as other investigations, show that Patel, 58, “is directly involved in criminal activities” that include possessing drugs with the intent to traffic and receiving a material benefit from sexual services.
“He is not an innocent third party,” Brûlé said.
The first operation, in late April, involved officers renting a room for four hours for $45 in cash and telling Patel the officer posing a prostitute would be seeing clients in the room. Patel warned them to watch for police in the parking lot, Brûlé said.
During all three operations, Patel is alleged to have helped the fake pimp buy crack and, on the third occasion, fentanyl from the hotel’s concierge.
While police were conducting the third operation, Patel is said to have asked for an extra $10 after he was told three men were coming to sleep with the officer posing as a prostitute.
The third operation took a different approach, with the fake pimp telling Patel he needed a room for a friend who was hiding from police, which was given to him without issue.
According to evidence from an informant included in the affidavit, Patel stored drugs at the reception desk for dealers and would turn off the cameras when people wanted to beat someone up in another room.
A message left with the person who answered the phone at Patel’s Montreal home was not returned.
Patel, who has no criminal record, has not been charged with any offences.
Police say the investigation is ongoing. Desroches said two people were arrested during the June 20 raid and were released on a promise to appear.
A spokesperson for the regional health authority, the CIUSSS for west-central Montreal, said it met with a dozen people after the police operation to help them find new places to live.
Sandy Mesher, who has been living at the motel on and off for about a year, said he thinks police are exaggerating the situation.
Patel helped residents out, even driving a visually impaired neighbour to the grocery store to get food, Mesher said. Sometimes, Patel would let him stay at the hotel for a few nights and pay later.
“I don’t see him being the drug dealer that they’re trying to say that he is,” Mesher said.
Mesher said he plans to move to another motel, but that he worries about support for older neighbours who have been living there longer.
For people who live nearby, the raid is a positive sign. A woman who lives in a neighbouring building said people she believes are from the motel have urinated, defecated and used drugs in her lobby.