A 24-year-old man appeared at the Montreal courthouse Wednesday to face charges related to a drug trafficking investigation initiated after a 15-year-old boy died of an overdose in December.
Laxshan Mylvaganam, of Montreal, was ordered to remain detained after he made his brief court appearance. He faces seven charges, including trafficking in a controlled substance and trafficking in cannabis. The alleged offences took place this month. Two other men — Simon Paquette Gerardo, 34, of Rawdon, and Philippe Lévesque-Plamondon, 37, of Montreal — were charged as part of the same investigation.
According to the Montreal police, a 17-year-old person was also arrested on Tuesday and was expected to be charged at Montreal’s youth courthouse.
“These arrests are the result of an investigation lasting several months that was initiated following the death by overdose of a 15-year-old teenager, in December 2023, in the Sud-Ouest borough,” the Montreal police said in a statement on Tuesday.
The victim of the overdose was Mathis Boivin, who died on Dec. 22.
The police said Mylvaganam and the 17-year-old are “suspected synthetic drug traffickers in Montreal” and that the part of the investigation related to the fatal overdose allegedly applies to them and not the other two people who appeared in court on Wednesday.
The boy’s death made headlines in January when his father, Christian Boivin, went public about how his son died in an effort to warn other teenagers against taking pills not prescribed by a doctor. He said his son thought he was taking oxycodone, but he believed his son ended up consuming a pill that turned out to be much stronger than fentanyl.
The father said he was unable to wake his son up the following morning and found a container of blue pills next to him.
On Wednesday, Christian Boivin told reporters at the courthouse that he wished someone would have been charged with committing a homicide in the investigation.
Besides the arrests, the Montreal police searched three homes in Ahuntsic–Cartierville and Villeray—St-Michel—Parc-Extension.
“Several hundred counterfeit pharmaceutical-looking tablets were seized,” the police said in the statement. “The investigation shows that these counterfeit tablets are in reality dangerous synthetic opioids (of the isotonitazene type) that can cause cases of overdose.”