FOUR MEN LINKED TO DRUG SMUGGLER CHARGED

Global Probe Of Money Laundering. Boxes Of Evidence Collected On Laval
Lawyer, Three Businessmen, Crown Prosecutor Says

A Laval lawyer and three businessmen have been charged with money
laundering after an RCMP investigation that spanned the globe.

Pierre Boivin, 55, appeared in handcuffs in Laval court yesterday - calm,
with a smile visible underneath his thick handlebar moustache as his
lawyer, Christiane Filteau, entered a not guilty plea on eight charges of
conspiracy and money laundering.

Boivin is accused of laundering $4.5 million for a convicted drug smuggler.
A resident of St. Sauveur des Monts who is part of the Laval law firm
Boivin & Deschamps, Boivin was released on bail after posting a $100,000
bond and agreeing to turn over his passport.

Crown prosecutor Michel Vien informed Boivin and Filteau there are nine
boxes worth of evidence to be picked up at RCMP headquarters in Westmount
when they are ready to prepare a defence.

The three other men charged yesterday - Michel St-Vincent, 60, a retired
notary; Rene Gelinas, 59, president of Mondo-Tech International, a St.
Sauveur finance company; and Ronald Chicoine, 51, president of
Montreal-based Speedo financial corporation - were also told several
volumes of evidence are available for their lawyers to go through.

All three were released on the same conditions as Boivin.

They are charged with laundering the money of convicted drug smuggler Henri
Bertrand.

Bertrand, 71, is serving a nine-year sentence handed out last year in
Montreal court. He admitted to being the mastermind of a 3.4-tonne shipment
of marijuana and hashish seized in Florida by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration in 1999.

RCMP Sgt. Monique Sanche said the probe of the four men was limited to drug
money they could tie to Bertrand.

"While we were investigating Mr. Henri Bertrand for proceeds of crime, we
discovered a group of individuals who were laundering money. It is an
investigation that lasted nearly four years, was extremely complex and
different strategies were used by Mr. Pierre Boivin," she said.

"We required the assistance of six countries."

Sanche said Bertrand used offshore companies, incorporated in countries
like Nevis and with bank accounts in the Bahamas, to buy real estate with
drug money, including Bertrand's home in the Laurentians and a condominium
in Cannes, France.

At least two other Quebec lawyers currently face criminal charges related
to drug trafficking, including Benoit Cliche, who was arrested and charged
with assisting his client, Hells Angels associate Steven Bertrand, to move
cocaine.

The case against Boivin and the co-accused returns to court on Feb. 26.