Ricardo Francis Scarpino was shot to death Saturday night as he arrived at his own engagement party at an upscale Vancouver restaurant.
Scarpino was parking his 2007 Land Rover outside Gotham Steakhouse at Seymour and Dunsmuir when gunmen raced across the street and filled the black SUV with bullets.
A close friend of Scarpino's, who was sitting behind the convicted drug trafficker, was also killed.
Scarpino's 37-year-old's fiance watched in horror from the front passenger's seat as her future husband died. Neither she nor a fourth person in the vehicle were injured.
Scarpino had only got out of jail on Jan. 12 after a series of run-ins with the law going back 14 years on both sides of the border.
His brother Mario Scarpino said Sunday his whole family is distraught at the news, especially given that Scarpino was about to get married and start his life fresh.
The uninjured man in the vehicle was also known to police, while the second victim, who like Ricardo Scarpino lived in West Vancouver, was not on the police radar. Ricardo Scarpino was convicted in 1999 in Victoria of being the ringleader in a cocaine importation scheme. He later won an appeal and the Crown stayed the charges. However, he was recently convicted of possession of a firearm and sentenced to another nine months in jail.
He was previously involved in a shooting death in 1993 when he was working as a bounty hunter in California, but convinced a court it was a matter of self-defence and was sentenced to 27 months for firearms violations.Scarpino has also worked with a variety of criminal groups, including prominent gangsters linked to Ranjit Singh Cheema, who was recently extradited to the U.S. to face trafficking charges. Scarpino told Lower Mainland associates that he had New York Mafia connections.
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