A man who has done little to hide the fact he is the leader of a motorcycle gang that once waged a bloody war with the Hells Angels in Quebec is behind bars following his arrest on drug trafficking charges.

Jean-François Émard, 38, appeared before a judge at the Valleyfield courthouse on Monday where he faces four criminal charges. The Crown objected to his release and he was ordered detained for a future bail hearing. Émard was arrested late Sunday night after a Sûreté du Québec officer pulled over a car in Valleyfield for a routine Highway Code violation. The driver, a woman, was suspected of violating her probation, the car was searched and police found 490 methamphetamine pills, said SQ Sgt. Joyce Kemp, adding a 38-year-old man (Émard) was a passenger in the car.

On Monday, Émard was charged with possession with intent to traffick in methamphetamines, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, possession of $300 suspected of being the proceeds of crime and simple possession of marijuana. A 30-year-old woman from Ontario faces similar charges. According to the indictment, Émard lists his residence as being in a small town in Ontario, near the border with Quebec, but in previous arrests he has listed his address as being in Quebec.

In December 2013, he completed a 2-year sentence he received after having pleaded guilty to to three counts of drug trafficking as well as the production of an illegal narcotic.

During the past summer, he granted at least two interviews to the French language station TVA and to La Presse, during which he and other men with him showed off their gang patches, confirming that the Rock Machine, a gang that disappeared in 2000, was back in Quebec. Émard told TVA he was the vice-president of the gang’s worldwide membership. The gang’s name alone evokes memories of a violent conflict the Rock Machine was involved in against the Hells Angelsthat began in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 160 people, including several innocent victims. But in September, Émard told La Presse the resurrected version of the Rock Machine is not an enemy of the Hells Angels.

“There is no war. To the contrary, we respect them,” Émard told the newspaper, while adding that they party with the Hells Angels.

The Rock Machine in Montreal was founded at least two years before the Hells Angels declared war in 1994 on it and a group of other organized crime gangs that came to be known as The Alliance. It was founded by Salvatore and Giovanni Cazzetta, two brothers who had previously known then Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher through their ties to a Montreal street gang. Originally, the Rock Machine was intended as a reaction against the Hells Angels. It wasn’t a motorcycle gang and it did not adhere to a strict set of rules like the ones the Hells Angels are asked to follow. But by the late 1990s, the Rock Machine did become a motorcycle gang, apparently as part of its eventually successful effort to join the Bandidos, a much larger international gang.

In 2000, the Rock Machine was officially folded into the Bandidos. But before that happened, the Hells Angels offered several members of the Rock Machine the chance to defect to their side and many did, notably Salvatore Cazzetta. The defections, combined with a large-scale police roundup of the Bandidos in 2002 following an investigation dubbed Operation Amigo, appeared to crush whatever was left of the original Rock Machine.

The more recent version of the Rock Machine has ties to the past version. Its website lists three Canadian members in a section titled “Brothers behind Bars.” One of the men is Danny Borris, 40, a resident of New Brunswick who is incarcerated. Borris was arrested by the Montreal police, in 2002, in Operation Amigo, and ended up receiving a 12-month sentence for drug trafficking in Operation Amigo.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

An employee at the provincial detention centre in St-Jérôme is expected to appear in court on Monday after the Sûreté du Québec seized drugs at the jail.

According to a release issued by the SQ on Saturday, the 43-year-old employee was arrested on Friday along with a 44-year-old inmate at the St-Jérôme Detention Centre. The release did not specify whether the employee was a guard at the jail.

Both men will be charged with drug trafficking, according to the provincial police force. The investigation was set off by information supplied by the public.

The detention centre is the same one where two men managed to escape in March 2013 after outside accomplices ordered a helicopter pilot to land on a roof at the detention centre and picked up the pair.

The two men and their alleged accomplices were later arrested.

A man with alleged ties to a Mafia clan that was involved in a conflict with the Rizzuto organization has pleaded guilty to carrying a loaded firearm while the dispute had reached its peak.

Dany De Gregorio, 45, of Laval, was supposed to start a 10-day trial on Monday. Instead, he and one of his co-accused in a criminal case that started in 2011 opted to enter guilty pleas at the Montreal courthouse.

According to a summary of facts read into the court record for Quebec Court Judge Nathalie Fafard, the Montreal police began an investigation into De Gregorio at the start of February 2011. Although prosecutor Claudine Charest did not mention it on Monday, at the time, the Montreal police was seeking information from its sources on anyone tied to the Mafia who might be carrying firearms.

In the months leading up to De Gregorio’s arrest, Vito Rizzuto’s son Nick and one of the elder Rizzuto’s closest associates, Agostino Cuntrera, 66, had been murdered. The slayings appeared to be part of a challenge of the Rizzuto organization’s leadership role within the Mafia in Montreal. De Gregorio was known to police at that time for his ties to Giuseppe De Vito, the leader of a clan who hated the Rizzuto organization. De Vito blamed the Rizzutos for the 2004 slaying of Paolo Gervasi, his former boss. Also, Project Colisée, a lengthy investigation into the Rizzuto organization, revealed a network De Vito had set up using people who worked for airlines or food services companies at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport to smuggle cocaine into Canada.

The conflict has since simmered down considerably following Vito Rizzuto’s death last year of natural causes. De Vito died of cyanide poisoning inside a federal penitentiary, during the summer of 2013, while serving a lengthy sentence for drug trafficking.

As Charest mentioned in court on Monday, an attempt was made on De Gregorio’s life, in June 2009, when someone shot him three times after he exited a gym in St-Léonard. At the start of February 2011, a police informant told the Montreal police that De Gregorio carried a loaded firearm inside the glove compartment of his vehicle because of the attempt made on his life, and because he had learned that a contract had been put out on his life.

Investigators decided to follow De Gregorio for a few days until they gathered enough evidence to make an arrest, after he exited Café Nada on Lavoisier St. in St-Léonard. When they searched his vehicle, a Town and Country van, they found a loaded 9 mm handgun, ammunition and a bulletproof vest along with five cellular phones. As part of the same investigation, officers arrested Ciro Di Mauro, 40, of Montreal, and seized nearly two kilograms of cocaine.

On Monday, Di Mauro pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking. Charest said that while Di Mauro does not have a criminal record, he also is known to police for having ties to organized crime. A third man who was arrested in the same investigation, Giovanni Gentile, 41, saw his case pushed back to March while the defence and prosecution continue to discuss matters related to him.

De Gregorio faces the possibility of serving a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for being in possession of a prohibited and loaded firearm for which he did not have a permit. However the mandatory minimum sentence is currently the subject of a case before the Supreme Court of Canada, and both sides agreed to await the higher court’s decision before recommending a sentence to Fafard. Defence lawyer Loris Cavaliere said the Supreme Court case has possible implications on De Gregorio’s sentence because his client “was protecting himself.”

The case returns to court in March.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

As a manager in charge of security intelligence at the St-Jérôme Detention Centre, Jackie Simard should have known about Mario (Tiger) Bérubé’s past record involving drugs at penitentiaries.

Oct. 13, 1995 — Bérubé is charged with drug possession and a related conspiracy charge while serving a 45-month sentence at a penitentiary in Laval. The sentence was for a staggering amount of convictions he gathered in 1993. These included at least 25 counts of theft, 10 counts of fraud and nine of forgery. A week after being charged with possessing drugs at the penitentiary, Bérubé pleaded guilty, was sentenced to three months and had two years of probation tacked on to the end of his existing sentence.

Oct. 3, 1996 — Bringing drugs into the Laval penitentiary apparently earned Bérubé a transfer to the maximum-security Donnacona Institution near Quebec City. In 1996, inmates at the penitentiary had somehow obtained lists of home addresses of some guards who worked there. Bérubé arranged to have 18 grams of PCP shipped to the home of one of the guards, who reported the delivery to authorities. The following year, Bérubé pleaded guilty to possession of PCP and saw eight months tacked on to his existing sentence.

Sept. 16, 2004 — While serving his second federal sentence, for armed robberies at stores in Montreal, guards at the Donnacona Institution found Bérubé had enough marijuana to be charged with drug trafficking, as well as a smaller amount of heroin. The case was transferred to a courthouse in Miramichi, N.B., where Bérubé was set to plead guilty to an armed robbery he carried out in that province while out on a statutory release. What started as a five-year sentence in 2000 became an aggregate 14-year sentence following his guilty pleas in New Brunswick. He received a 20-month sentence for trafficking in marijuana at Donnacona.

Feb. 24, 2012 — With 20 months left on his 14-year sentence, Bérubé was back at Donnacona — for having committed at least seven armed robberies while being illegally at large — and was caught holding hashish. He pleaded guilty to the possession charge, on July 25, of this year, while Simard was allegedly helping him smuggle drugs into St. Jérôme. He received a 30-day prison sentence.

A man who was the head of a network of drug runners the Montreal police described as an “emerging force” within the Montreal Mafia apologized for the harm he caused society in the hopes of avoiding being sent to a federal penitentiary.

“I am sorry for my actions,” said Tomasso Paparelli, 32, as his hearing before Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Boyer neared its end Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse. “I caused harm to people. I caused harm to society and I caused harm to my own family. This was my first run-in with the law. It will be my last run-in with the law.”

Boyer will decide on Paparelli’s sentence on Friday. Prosecutor Éric Poudrier described Paparelli as the “summit of the chain” of more than 20 people arrested in May 2013 in Project Argot, a two-year investigation by Montreal police. Poudrier suggested a five-year overall prison term would serve to dissuade others from doing the same.

The network Paparelli ran — from an apartment building on Joseph Renaud Blvd. in Anjou that served as his office — sold every illegal drug available in east-end Montreal, except for heroin, Poudrier noted. A camera Montreal police secretly installed inside the apartment recorded everything Paparelli did and revealed he acted as purchaser, controlled couriers and handled the accounting. The police estimate the group made more than $230,000 during one seven-month span of the investigation.

Paparelli’s lawyer, Loris Cavaliere, suggested a 51-month sentence would be more appropriate in his client’s case. Based on a calculation both sides of the case agreed upon, Paparelli has served the equivalent of 27 months while awaiting the outcome of his case. Cavaliere argued the rest could be served in a provincial detention centre, where Paparelli would have faster access to parole, if Boyer agrees to set the remainder of the sentence at two years less a day. He noted that, despite the allegations Montreal police made when the network was busted last year, no one arrested was ever charged with gangsterism.

Police sources said at the time that the investigation revealed the network was paying a form of tribute to Giuseppe De Vito, the leader of a Mafia clan that clashed with the Rizzuto organization while its now-deceased leader, Vito Rizzuto, was serving a prison sentence in the U.S.

Project Argot was launched in March 2011, while the Mafia in Montreal was going through a very violent internal clash over who controlled things like drug trafficking in northeastern Montreal. Cavaliere described Paparelli as a manager who paid someone weekly “in order to keep working.” But he did not mention the name of the person Paparelli made payments to. De Vito was behind bars during Project Argot and he died of cyanide poisoning in a federal penitentiary during summer 2013, just weeks after his wife, Adele Sorella, was convicted of murdering their two young daughters while he was on the lam trying to avoid a drug smuggling case in 2009.

Paparelli’s group sold cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and marijuana in St-Léonard and Rivières des Prairies, areas that have been traditionally controlled by the Mafia. On May 27, 2014, Paparelli pleaded guilty to a total of 20 charges including drug trafficking, possession with intent to traffic and possession of more than $5,000 obtained as the proceeds of crime. His younger brother, Massimo, 26, was also arrested in Project Argot and then again, in June, in Project Clemenza, an RCMP investigation into two distinct Mafia clans. Both cases are still pending.

A dozen of the 23 people arrested in Project Argot have pleaded guilty and eight have received sentences ranging between 12 and 42 months.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

A regional integrated squad led by the Sûreté du Québec arrested nine people Wednesday as part of an investigation into a marijuana trafficking ring that provincial police allege was run by a man with ties to the Hells Angels.

The people arrested are suspected of growing pot in various parts of the Laurentians as well as selling it. As of Wednesday afternoon, the police seized more than 6,300 marijuana plants, 219 grow lamps and 25 pounds of marijuana packed in bags. Officers also seized three vehicles and uncovered equipment at two locations that was used to camouflage the high consumption of electricity normally associated with a large-scale marijuana grow-operation.

The organized crime squad made the arrests in municipalities in the lower Laurentians including St-Jérôme, Mirabel and St-Lin-des-Laurentides. According to a statement issued by the Sûreté du Québec, one of the people arrested is a 32-year-old man from St-Jérôme “who has ties to the Hells Angels,” the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle club.

Sgt. Gino Paré, a spokesperson for the SQ, said the investigation into the ring began in January and most of the people arrested will be charged with production and possession of marijuana. A few will also probably be charged with stealing electricity from Hydro-Québec, Paré added.

Eleven search warrants were carried out in residences, vehicles and a warehouse on Lamontagne St. in St-Jérôme. More than 60 police officers from the SQ and municipal police forces from Laval, St-Jérôme and Mirabel took part in the police operation. Regional integrated squads are based in various parts of Quebec and bring together investigators from the SQ, whose expertise is in combating organized crime, with their colleagues from municipal police forces.

Three people made appearances before a judge at the St-Jérôme courthouse on Wednesday. Of the three, Martin Carrière, 32, and José Nolet, 43, were ordered to be held in custody for a bail hearing scheduled on Thursday. They were both charged with conspiracy to produce marijuana and possession of marijuana with the intent to traffic. The third man, Jean-François Charette, 31, faces less serious charges and was ordered released on Wednesday after agreeing to follow a series of conditions. The other people arrested on Wednesday will probably be charged at a later date.

While alleged to have ties to the most notorious biker gang in the world, Carrière does not have a criminal record in Quebec’s provincial courts. Nolet has a criminal record that dates back to 1990, when he resided in Val d’Or, for a series of minor thefts.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Louis Pasquin, the first lawyer in Canada to be convicted of gangsterism, learned Thursday he has run out of options ‎and will have to continue serving time in a federal penitentiary for drug trafficking.

The Supreme Court of Canada announced Thursday it will not hear Pasquin’s appeal of the case in which he was arrested, along with a Hells Angel and a well-connected drug trafficker in a police operation code named Project Piranha.

After his arrest, in 2006, Pasquin — a defence lawyer who for years handled cases at the Montreal courthouse — launched a constitutional challenge of how telephone calls secretly recorded by the Sûreté du Québec during the investigation were allowed into evidence.

He claimed the recorded conversations were protected by attorney-client privilege, which restricts police from listening to conversations when a lawyer is defending a client.

Two Quebec Court judges listened to the recordings and determined provincial police could continue wiretapping Pasquin’s conversations with the drug trafficker, Louis-Alain Dauphin.

A trial judge also allowed the recordings into evidence when Pasquin’s case started. In April, a panel of three Quebec Court of Appeal judges unanimously ag‎reed with the trial judge.

Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court means Pasquin, who was incarcerated in May, will serve his sentence while all the major players arrested in Project Piranha are already free.

Timeline of events

Jan. 27, 2004: The Sûreté du Québec begins Project Piranha, an investigation into Louis-Alain Dauphin, a well-connected yet independent drug trafficker who operated primarily in the Laurentians. Investigators suspect Pasquin is helping Dauphin in his drug deals.

Oct. 26, 2005: A request is made to a Quebec Court judge to determine whether 68 intercepted conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge ultimately determined that 47 of the conversations were not protected. During the investigation, police seized 49 kilos of cocaine, after which Pasquin and Dauphin stopped talking so much over the phone.

March 14, 2006: Pasquin is arrested. He is among 23 people eventually indicted in Project Piranha, including Hells Angel Salvatore Brunetti, Dauphin and Michael Russel, a pilot who flew drugs into Montreal for Dauphin from Kelowna, B.C.

March 9, 2007: Dauphin and Brunetti plead guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to trafficking in cocaine in various cities north of Montreal and a gangsterism charge. Dauphin was sentenced to a seven-year prison term while Brunetti was sentenced to two years.

June 2008: Brunetti, 62, reaches his statutory release date and is allowed to leave a penitentiary.

March 6, 2009: After a lengthy trial, Pasquin is convicted on four charges, including the drug trafficking conspiracy and trafficking in substances designated for the profit or under the direction of a criminal organization, making him the first lawyer in Canada to be convicted of gangsterism.

June 12, 2009: Pasquin is sentenced to a 54-month prison term but avoids entering a federal penitentiary by filing an appeal over the recorded telephone conversations.

Jan. 18, 2011: Dauphin is granted full parole by the Parole Board of Canada.

Feb. 27, 2011: The 18-month prison sentence pilot Michael Russel received, after pleading guilty in August 2009, expires.

April 15, 2014: The Quebec Court of Appeal releases a unanimous decision maintaining three of the charges Pasquin was convicted of, including conspiracy and gangsterism, but acquits him on one drug trafficking charge. Pasquin continues to insist he introduced Russel to Dauphin but knew nothing of their drug-trafficking schemes. The Crown argues that, on their own, each piece recorded conversation proves little, but when considered together make clear Pasquin was facilitating Dauphin and Russel’s transactions and letting them use his house for meetings. The appellate court agrees Pasquin had difficulty explaining what was behind some of the cryptic conversations. Three weeks later, Pasquin is brought to a federal penitentiary to begin serving his sentence. Because he was convicted of gangsterism, he is required to serve at least half of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

Nov. 27, 2014: The Supreme Court of Canada announces it will not hear Pasquin’s appeal.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/pcherryreporter

Paul Cherry is the Montreal Gazette’s crime reporter.

The latest victim of Montreal’s Mob violence — shot dead by masked gunmen Monday in a Rivière-des-Prairies restaurant — was recently named in court in Italy as a member of the rebellious faction of mobsters fighting to overthrow Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto.

Antonino Callocchia, usually called Tonino or Tony, was hit Monday afternoon by multiple bullets from one or more masked gunmen who then fled.

It was the second attempt on Callocchia’s life; on Feb. 1, 2013, he was seriously injured in a similar ambush in a restaurant in Laval.

Born Nov. 6, 1961, his ties to the Mafia in Montreal have been documented for decades. Part of his underworld strength came through his link by marriage to the Armeni clan of well-known Mob-linked drug traffickers. One of his first arrests, according to Quebec Court records, was in 1985 alongside four members of clan, although he was acquitted.

He was also arrested in a landmark money laundering and drug trafficking case in Montreal in 1994 alongside notable Mobsters and lawyers who helped invest Mob money linked to Mr. Rizzuto.

But before his death, the enigmatic man was moving from the criminal sidelines and becoming more central to the city’s underworld.

The move brought increased scrutiny over his standing and allegiance in the Mafia war that has rocked Montreal — a sweeping power struggle between Rizzuto and rebels trying to oust him when he was imprisoned in the United States in 2006. The war went badly against the Rizzutos until the boss returned to Canada in October 2012 and fought to reclaim his position of power.

Some saw Callocchia as a Rizzuto loyalist and even a possible successor to Vito Rizzuto — who died of natural causes in December 2013. His involvement in a case of extortion against a woman with ties to Raynald Desjardins, a gangster named in Italian court as the leader of the rebellious faction, furthered that view.

Others saw his closeness to Calabrian dissidents unfriendly toward the Sicilian-born Rizzuto as well as to Joseph Di Maulo, an influential Mafia boss killed in 2012, likely for not remaining loyal to Rizzuto, as a sign he, too, had strayed.

Callocchia, however, was subject to a recent assessment by the anti-Mafia police in Sicily, the birthplace of the Mafia, as they investigated the murders in Palermo of two Mobsters from Canada.

Police in Italy are analyzing reams of secretly recorded telephone calls made last year by a Mobster from Canada who was living in Sicily. The chatty mobster, Juan Ramon Fernandez, was close to Rizzuto for decades and spoke disrespectfully of Callocchia when talking to other Rizzuto loyalists.

Fernandez called him “a fucking idiot,” according to wiretap transcripts obtained by the National Post.

A few days after the 2013 attack on Callocchia, Fernandez phoned for an update from a friend in Montreal, identified in court as Antonio Carbone who was described as a veteran Montreal Mobster close to the Rizzutos.

The two spoke of the attacks against enemies of Vito Rizzuto; Callocchia was named on a list of perceived opponents.

The authorities in Italy note that Callocchia was shot the first time while Rizzuto was travelling to the Dominican Republic to meet in privacy with acolytes to plot revenge against those who were disloyal to him and his family while he was in prison.

While Rizzuto was out of the country, “the offensive against the ‘dissident’ faction was unleashed,” says a report on the Mafia war prepared by the Carabinieri ROS, Italy’s anti-Mafia police unit, and presented in court last month.

Monday’s murder of Callocchia came after months of relative peace within Montreal’s underworld after shocking displays of murder and violence.

Callocchia was pronounced dead around 1:30 p.m. inside Bistro XO Plus, a restaurant in a plaza on Henri-Bourassa Blvd. E. near LJ-Forget Ave.

“He was a big player (within the Mafia). That is certain,” said a Montreal police source.

According to Quebec’s business registry, Callocchia was the owner of a numbered company, 9166-3807 Quebec Inc., involved in real estate management, and another company called Construction T.D.P.

In 1994, Callocchia was arrested along with 56 other people as part of a major RCMP drug trafficking and money laundering investigation against the Rizzuto organization. Following a lengthy trial, Callocchia was found guilty of acting as an intermediary for Vincenzo Di Maulo (brother of Joseph), who was laundering drug money through various businesses.

Callocchia received a four-year sentence but authorities then moved against him on a second case, dating to 1994, where the RCMP had evidence he tried to smuggle more than 160 kilograms of cocaine into Canada through a Toronto airport.

He pleaded guilty to drug smuggling-related charges in 1998. With everything combined, he ended up having to serve an aggregate sentence of 21 years in all.

When he appeared before the Parole Board of Canada in 2001 he was described as intelligent, well-structured and “an active member of the Italian Mafia.”

“The offences you have committed are large-scale and they required organization and planning at a level that only a highly organized group can hope to execute,” the board said. He took college-level business administration courses while serving the sentence.

When he was granted full parole in 2002 he told the board that he had no financial concerns because of an inheritance from his grandfather and the sale of a large piece of real estate that belonged to his mother.

The board believed he was now motivated “to follow the rules of society” away from a life of crime.

National Post with files from Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette

ahumphreys@nationalpost.com

Twitter.com/AD_Humphreys

A border guard at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle and two accomplices are in police custody after being accused of attempting to import 182 kilograms of cocaine into Canada.

Stéphanie McClelland, 37, Gregory Singh, 28, and Ariane Desgroseilliers, 24, were arrested on Tuesday and appeared in front of a judge on Wednesday in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

They were arrested by officers with the RCMP and, as the investigation is ongoing, Sgt. Luc Thibault was not able to give details of when and how the investigation into this alleged plot began.

“I can confirm that one of our employees was arrested,” said Jacqueline Roby with Canada Border Services Agency. “We (CBSA) are fully engaged in the investigation and cooperating with the RCMP.”

We have no tolerance for illegal activities with our employees.”
— CBSA’s Roby

McClelland was arrested at her border workplace. All three will be back in front of a judge on Friday to discuss bail conditions.

asutherland@montrealgazette.com

Six men and two women were arrested Wednesday morning by a special squad of local police and Sûrété du Québec officers in the Eastern Townships city of Granby.

The eight are believed to be part of a network that sold cocaine in the Granby region.

The raids started at 7 a.m. and targeted five homes and four vehicles. In addition to Granby, raids also took place in Ste-Cécile-de-Milton and Roxton Pond.

One detail in today’s busts is that the group was very organized,  operating in three shifts, working 24-7. A 31-year-old man from St-Cécile-de-Milton is believed to be the kingpin who obtained the cocaine and the others are believed to have distributed the drug.

The busts are the culmination of an investigation that began in October 2014 with tips from the public. Police seized cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine tablets and cash.

The drug ring may be linked to biker gangs, said Aurélie Guindon, speaking for the regional squad.

“There are elements to the investigation that say there could be links,” she specified.

The eight will appear Wednesday afternoon in a Granby court to face charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy.

The mixed squad of 50 officers included from the Granby, Bromont and MRC de la Haute-Yamaska forces, and the SQ.

asutherland@montrealgazette.com

The Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter in Quebec was once the most feared organized crime group in the province.

Its founding members were selected from the gang’s Montreal and Trois Rivières chapters, in 1995, by Maurice (Mom) Boucher (a Hells Angel for eight years at that point) as part of a plan to wage war with anyone who opposed his goal to expand the gang’s drug-trafficking turf exponentially.

Over the course of six years, more than 150 people were killed, including several innocent victims. At least 85 bombs were set off — including one in 1995 that killed Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy who was playing near a Jeep when it exploded — and 140 arson fires were set.

By 2000, it was clear the Nomads were winning the war as police discovered accounting files that revealed the chapter was making $5.5 million in profits, per month, off the sale of cocaine and hashish.

A written summary of a Parole Board of Canada decision made public last week concerning one of the Nomads, Gilles Mathieu, describes the group as one that “created a climate of terror within society.” The chapter was wiped out by a series of arrests in March 2001, following a police investigation dubbed Operation Printemps 2001. According to the Hells Angels’ official website, it no longer exists. Most of the chapter’s members ended up pleading guilty to charges of drug-trafficking, gangsterism and taking part in a general conspiracy to commit murder.

They received sentences that, for the most part, will expire between 2018 and 2020. Over the past year, four of the chapter’s members reached their statutory release dates, the two-thirds mark of their prison terms, and at least three appear intent to remain Hells Angels for life. But an overview shows Operation Printemps 2001 had a serious impact. One member is dead and another is on the lam. Three others are serving life sentences that would make them a liability to the gang if ever released. Another three have convinced the parole board they have quit the gang.

Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the reputed head of the Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels in Quebec, flashes peace sign to photographers outside a funeral home in Montreal where wake for Normand ‘Biff’ Hamel is being held on Friday April 21, 2000.

Maurice (Mom) Boucher, 61. While many people in law enforcement believe he will be incarcerated for the rest of his life, the founder of the Nomads chapter can apply for day parole in roughly eight years. In 2002, Boucher was found guilty of ordering the deaths of three prison guards (one survived) in an attempt to intimidate Quebec’s justice system. He is serving three life sentences and has spent most of his time so far at a maximum-security penitentiary in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines. The year 2014 was a bad one for Boucher. He was reportedly kicked out of the Hells Angels in March and, in November, his son Francis, a former member of the Rockers, an underling gang the elder Boucher created, was arrested for threatening police officers.

David (Wolf) Carroll, 62. Where in the world is Wolf Carroll? That is the question Interpol poses on the current “Wanted” poster posted online seeking any information on the Hells Angel who has managed to avoid capture for more than 13 years. Interpol notes the “Hells Angels have chapters in more than 20 countries and information suggests that Carroll has frequented a number (of them) including Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United States (as well as countries in South America and Europe).”

Nomads member Rene Ouellette-Charlebois looks on from the Hell’s Angels Sorel bunker Friday December 29 in Tracy, Quebec.

René (Balloune) Charlebois, died at age 48. Earlier this year, a provincial coroner determined Charlebois took his own life, on Sept. 26, 2013, as the Sûreté du Québec closed in on the chalet in Îlette-au-Pé, near Sorel, where he had been hiding after having escaped from a penitentiary 12 days earlier. He was serving a life sentence for murdering a police informant. Shortly after Charlebois’s death, a friend of his turned over recordings to the SQ that contained evidence that Benoît Roberge, a Montreal police detective, had sold information about ongoing investigations to Charlebois. Roberge was arrested and, in March, pleaded guilty to breach of trust and participating in the activities of a criminal organization. Roberge is currently serving an 8-year prison term.

André Chouinard, 54. In February, Chouinard told the parole board he quit the Hells Angels in 1999, just one year after he was named a member of the Nomads chapter. Despite having a stellar reputation as a high-volume drug trafficker, he fell out of favour with the gang and, according to Chouinard, he left Quebec and went into hiding for years because the gang would not tolerate him as competition. He was indicted in Printemps 2001 and was arrested in 2003. A year later, he was sentenced to a 20-year prison term and was turned down for day parole in February.

Paul (Fon Fon) Fontaine, 47. He was a key player in Boucher’s first effort at expanding the gang’s control of drug-trafficking turf in eastern Montreal. As a member of the Rockers, he took orders from Boucher and, on Sept. 8, 1997, he and an accomplice murdered provincial prison guard Pierre Rondeau and almost killed Rondeau’s colleague, Robert Corriveau. Fontaine went on the lam for years after killing Rondeau and was named a full-patch member of the Nomads while he was hiding. In 2009, a jury found Fontaine guilty of both first-degree murder and attempted murder. He is currently serving a life sentence.

The Hells Angels Nomads chapter: Left to Right: Maurice (Mom) Boucher, André Chouinard, Normand Robitaille, David (Wolf) Carroll, Gilles (Trooper) Mathieu, Donald (Pup) Stockford, Wlater (Nurget) Stadnick, Normand (Biff) Hamel, Louis (Melou) Roy and Denis Houle. Seated: Michel Rose.

Denis (Pas Fiable) Houle, 61. Houle was serving a federal prison term in 1995 when Boucher persuaded him to leave the Montreal chapter and form the Nomads. While serving that sentence, Houle told the parole board: “With the Hells Angels, I have found a family.” This time around, Houle claims he quit the gang sometime after receiving his current overall 20-year prison sentence. He reached his statutory release date in September 2013.

Gilles (Trooper) Mathieu, 64. Like Houle, Mathieu reached his statutory release date in September 2013 but the parole board imposed the condition that he reside at a halfway house. Mathieu claims he quit the Hells Angels in 2009, but the board had a hard time looking past his longtime membership in the gang. On Dec. 17, Mathieu asked to have the halfway house condition lifted, a request supported by his case-management team. But during the hearing, the board learned Mathieu paid four visits to a barber who is a known associate of other Hells Angels. While Mathieu argued he simply went to the barber for haircuts, the board was skeptical and refused to lift the halfway house residency condition.

Richard (Dick) Mayrand, 51. Mayrand has known for years that his fellow Hells Angels killed his older bother Michel, as part of an internal purge, in 1985. So it comes as little surprise that the 22-year sentence Mayrand received in 2004 has done nothing to shake his faith in the biker gang. A decision taken by the parole board in late November, to impose conditions on his statutory release, reveals Mayrand remains a Hells Angel. “Your fidelity to the Hells Angels organization is qualified without fail. You remain loyal and you do not allow that to be criticized,” the board wrote in a summary of its decision. Mayrand left the gang’s Montreal chapter in January 2000 to take charge of the Nomads chapter while Boucher was detained and awaiting his second trial for murder. Mayrand recently told a parole officer: “I no longer need anything. I only need to help others. I want to be happy without material needs. However, the respect of the individual comes before everything else.”

Normand (Norm) Robitaille, 46. A couple of years ago, the Sûreté du Québec informed the parole board that, since 2009, Robitaille is no longer considered a Hells Angel. He was turned down for day parole in 2013 but has been granted permission, several times, to take unescorted leaves while he studies business at HEC Montréal. As of October, Robitaille had completed seven courses and was signed up for three more during the autumn session. Correctional Service Canada sends emails to his professors to confirm he actually attends classes. He will reach his statutory release date on Jan. 1, 2015.

Michel Rose, Hell Angels Nomads and Michel Bergeron, Hells Angels South at the wake for Hells Angel, Normand ‘Biff’ Hamel.

Michel Rose, 59. During a statutory release hearing in November, Rose claimed to have a fax proving he is no longer a Hells Angel but the parole board was skeptical. Rose was fast-tracked into the gang, and named a full-patch member in 1999, because of his abilities as a large-scale drug trafficker and his contacts within the Port of Montreal. He had 16 years left to serve when he entered guilty pleas in 2004. Rose, a grandfather now, was ordered to reside at a halfway house for the six years left on his sentence.

Walter (Nurget) Stadnick, 62. While serving his sentence in Ontario, Stadnick was transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary twice because guards suspected he was involved in loansharking and trafficking in contraband. When his statutory release date arrived in June, he was described to the parole board as a polite and respectful inmate but one who refuses to discuss his involvement with the gang. Stadnick, a member of the Hells Angels since 1982, was ordered to reside at a halfway house and saw a special condition imposed on his release that forbids him from riding a motorcycle.

Donald (Pup) Stockford, 52. Before his arrest in 2001, Stockford, a founding member of the Nomads, worked as a stuntman on Hollywood movies — including the film Narc, starring Ray Liotta. He also has remained loyal to the Hells Angels while he serves the 15-year prison term he received in 2004. “You clearly decided to adopt criminality as your lifestyle and you took cold-blooded decision(s) to achieve your goals and there is nothing in your file to suggest that you have changed,” the parole board wrote in September. The board imposed a condition that Stockford reside at a halfway house while he is out on statutory release.

Richard (Rick) Vallée, 57. Vallée was a founding member of the Nomads chapter but was not indicted in Operation Printemps 2001. That’s because he was detained in a U.S. murder case in 1995, and later went into hiding after staging a brazen escape from a Montreal hospital before he could be extradited. He was eventually arrested, in 2003, and later convicted of murder, in 2008, following a trial in Albany, N.Y. He is currently incarcerated at a high-security penitentiary in Lewisburg, Penn.

A former biker gang member who plotted to kill former Hells Angel Maurice (Mom) Boucher during the biker war has seen his release on a lengthy prison term revoked after being allegedly linked to a marijuana grow-op.

Jean (Le Français) Duquaire, 58, was one of the more aggressive rivals to the Hells Angels as the biker gang sought to expand its drug trafficking turf in Quebec during the 1990s. The Hells Angels took on several organized crime groups and many members of those gangs eventually agreed to join the Bandidos, the only other outlaw motorcycle gang that, by the end of the 1990s, had a worldwide membership comparable to the Hells Angels.

Duquaire was a founding member of the Bandidos chapter in Montreal, an organization that was crippled, in June 2002, by Operation Amigo, a Montreal police investigation that resulted in the arrests of its members. During at least one of the trials related to Operation Amigo, a former gang member testified that, during the summer of 2000, Duquaire orchestrated an attempt to kill Boucher, who convinced fellow members of the Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter to commit to the conflict (Boucher, who is serving life sentences for murder, was reportedly voted out of the Hells Angels this year). After having spotted Boucher, who was riding in a green Volkswagen Beetle, at a gas station at the corner of Sherbrooke St. and St-Laurent Blvd., Duquaire ordered two gang members to arm themselves, track down the car and kill him. The men were unable to locate Boucher.

You knew very well what was going on at that residence. You knew that you were facing a risky situation. What you achieved (in terms of rehabilitation) seemed real and significant, but you were leading a double life — Parole board, in its decision to revoke Duquaire’s release

In 2003, Duquaire pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, drug possession, illegal firearms possession, trafficking in weapons and participating in the activities of a criminal organization. Duquaire received a 16-year sentence for his leading role in many of the criminal activities uncovered by Operation Amigo and was left with 12 years to serve.

In 2010, he reached his statutory release date, the two-thirds mark of his sentence, and the Parole Board of Canada attached the condition that Duquaire be required to reside at a halfway house. For more than two years, Duquaire followed the rules of his halfway house well enough that the board lifted the condition. In April 2013, he was allowed to go free but in September of this year he suddenly found himself back behind bars.

According to a summary of a decision by the parole board, parole officers were advised that on Sept. 22 Duquaire showed up at a residence in St-Jérôme that was under surveillance by police investigating a marijuana grow-operation. He was accompanied by friend, who was carrying fresh earth for some of the plants.

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Duquaire was arrested as he exited the residence. A search of his car turned up $7,000 in cash and, inside the residence, police seized 40 kilos of marijuana buds. Duquaire told parole officers he had only been at the residence for 15 minutes and was there to collect rent for his girlfriend which, he claimed, explained the $7,000.

Despite the explanation, the parole board had doubts. Duquaire had the right to a hearing before the board in October but refused to attend. He is currently charged, at the St-Jérôme courthouse, with the illegal production of marijuana and possession with intent to traffic. The case returns to court on Jan. 23.

Duquaire’s current sentence expires on March 23, 2015.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Paul Cherry is the Montreal Gazette’s crime reporter.