“Last week I received a Springfield XD Sig Sauer P320, a Sig Sauer .229 and a Smith & Wesson CSX. It’ll have to be in those options.” An incriminating text sent out from Gaspesie resident, Jeremy Paquin-Herchel’s phone to one of his clients. Gaspesie is a region and the south shore peninsula to the St. Lawrence River.
In January of 2023, SQ in the region of Gaspesie arrested 25 year old Jeremy Paquin-Herchel. Surete du Quebec (SQ, Quebec Reginal Police) initiated an operation in October of 2021, sought to arrest arms dealers along with drug dealers on the island of Montreal. Although, part of this operation led them to Gaspesie, arresting a Paquin-Herchel in July, involved in arms dealing as well as trafficking cocaine.
Jeremy Paquin-Herchel was also arrested on June 15th of 2022 in possession of firearms and drugs. This was linked all the way back to Montreal street gangs. Many people suspected to be involved in the sights or this operation were arrested on the 1st of June in Montreal. Paquet-Hershel was suspected to be supplying firearms to these individuals. The smoking gun came at the end of January in 2024 through his phone.
Now 26, and in authorities hands, police found text messages and pictures of firearms as well as a vast quantities of drugs that Paquin-Herchel had sent to people throughout the recent years. Including texts he had sent out to clients, inviting them to see his weapon’s cache, the storage where he kept 20 of his firearms.
Paquin-Herchel was in the Longueil courthouse recently, where he pleaded guilty to trafficking kilos cocaine, thousands of pills, many pounds of marijuana along with a bucket of GHB. There are also several texts sent to Daniel Charleus, where they spoke about the purchase and sales of firearms.
Daniel Charleus, 27, was arrested on June 1st, 2022 for firearms trafficking. He was also a key player and close associate to gang leader Jean-Philippe Celestin an associate of Gregory ‘Picasso’ Woolley, in supplying arms to street gangs in Montreal, resulting in the crime rate peaking throughout these past few years. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
The June 1st 2022 bust required a total of 80 police officers and resulted in 50,000$ seized, as well as rifle and ammunition.
He and his clients used the Signal application to keep their conversations encrypted. A method that was used and shortly lived since the arrest of Charleus. Paquet was in Charleus’s contacts by the name of ‘*’.
Paquin-Herchel spoke to Charleus about how he was selling kilograms of cocaine for 30,000$ each, supplying him with pictures of the cocaine brick. He also mentioned that he would only make a measly 500$ of profit for the sale of each kilogram.
He did not only sell to clients in the province of Quebec, but reached out to clients in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and even as far as British Columbia. Paquin-Herchel had contacts in Newfoundland as well, although, they were not satisfied with the quality of his drugs, thus, losing his clients that he had connected with in Newfoundland.
Paquin-Herchel was not a fan of higher level organized crime throughout the province. In one text he mentioned how he wanted to keep “les estis de motards loin de sa buisiness” (“the damn bikers out of his business”). He is awaiting trial to this day.
