Hunt for three escaped convicts continues: Quebec police
Just over a year after two men broke out of a Quebec jail with a hijacked helicopter, three more detainees blindsided authorities with a brazen airlift.
Police said they are looking for a forest green chopper that they believe was used to help the men break out Saturday night from the Orsainville detention centre, just north of Quebec City.
Sources told QMI Agency the helicopter has a white cross painted on its underbelly.
The three being sought are Yves Denis, 25; Denis Lefebvre, 53; and Serge Pomerleau, 49.
Pomerleau is the alleged mastermind of a narcotics network that was dismantled during a 2010 police operation called Project Crayfish. Lefebvre and Denis are also believed to part of the network.
The men are charged with two counts of murder and drug-related offenses. Their trial for narcotics offenses began last April and their murder trial is upcoming.
If provincial police have any leads, they are keeping the information to themselves.
"Just because there aren't any current developments, it doesn't mean that police don't have relevant information," said police spokesperson Ann Mathieu. "It's a question of operational strategy. We know that the three men were looking for could be listening."
Last March, Dany Provencal, 33, and Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, escaped from a maximum-security jail north of Montreal with a hijacked helicopter.
Police caught the two men, along with two accomplices, shortly after the escape.