A Quebec fugitive has been identified as one of the victims of a double murder in the resort town of Playa del Carmen, Mexico on Monday morning.
The man whose throat was cut was Raphael Huppe, journalist Luis Horacio Najera confirmed on Wednesday after speaking to an official source connected to the investigation.
Huppe was on an Interpol list of fugitives. Three separate sets of identification were found on Monday near his body in a tourist apartment.
The woman’s identity has not been confirmed by sources.
Global Affairs Canada said it could not confirm the identities of the victims because of privacy concerns.
A security guard suffered non-fatal injuries in the attack.
Police report that the Canadian victims murdered this week suffered cuts to the neck caused by a razor or a knife.
Huppe became a fugitive after 77 charges were filed against him in December 2012 for alleged securities violations.
I have faced a total of $735,000 in fines if convicted of the charges in the judicial district of Joliette, Que.
The charges were laid after Huppe allegedly illegally encouraged 27 investors between June 2008 and June 2010 to purchase transportation, technology and pharmaceutical securities for an amount of $740,000.
The allegations state that Huppe fraudulently told investors that the securities could be redeemed or listed for trading, when they could not.
The charges were laid by the Autorité des marchés financiers, the regulatory and oversight body for Quebec’s financial sector.
Several Canadians have been killed in Mexico in recent years.
In January, two GTA men who Mexican authorities connect to organized crime were shot to death in broad daylight while dining at Hotel Xcaret, south of Playa de Carmen.
The victims are identified by the state prosecutor’s office and National Guard as Robert James Dinh, also known as Cong Dinh, and Thomas Cherukara, both of the GTA.
After those murders, Mexican authorities called Cherukara an “alleged member” of the Hells Angels, but an Ontario police source with extensive knowledge of the Canadian Hells Angels said he did not belong to the biker club.
Cherukara was one of five people charged in Toronto in June 2015 as part of a police operation called “Project Fire Extinguisher,” which targeted cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy sales.
Bolton mobster Daniele Ranieri was found bound and executed in a ditch in the Cancún area in March 2018.
Ranieri fled to Mexico in 2015 after York Regional Police issued a warrant for his arrest for extortion.
In Mexico, Ranieri assumed the name “Diego Ramirez Diaz.”
Police believe Ranieri was connected to the international criminal organization of the late Vito Rizzuto of Montreal.
The body of Ranieri’s associate, Michael Graham Cudmore, 39, was found in June 2020 in a ditched car on the side of a road in rural Mexico.
Joseph Catroppa of Innisfil, Ont., was shot dead outside a hotel in Cancún, Mexico, in September 2020.
Catroppa did prison time in Mexico for drug offenses and was convicted in Canada of murdering a Woodbridge man in 2000 in a nightclub dispute.
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