Lucas Costa Melo

Lucas Costa Melo (b. 27 December 1972 in Recife) is a Brazilian Canadian organised crime figure who was Chef (leader) of the British Columbia Cartel, Canada's largest and most powerful drug trafficking organisation from circa 2000 until his arrest in 2016. He was succeeded by his former top deputy Coba Castro, who some sources have suspected of arranging Costa Melo's exposure to the authorities and arrest while in California. Following his arrest and subsequent replacement by Castro, at least twenty of Costa Melo's former senior deputies and enforcers were executed by the cartel on Castro's orders. The possible conspiracy plus the subsequent executions has led some to identify Castro's accession to power as a coup.

Costa Melo has been incarcerated since the January 2017 at the Kent Institution, a federally administered maximum-security prison in British Columbia. His trial is ongoing and consists of several distinct charges: as of April 2021, Costa Melo has been convicted of six counts of conspiracy to murder, one count of drug trafficking and two counts of passport fraud; Costa Melo has also been charged with two more counts of conspiracy to murder, one count of money laundering and one count of wire fraud, for which he is currently awaiting trial. Thus far, Costa Melo has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.