138 snared; Boucher charged in 13 murders

The 'Mom' of all raids

Thursday 29 March 2001
GEORGE KALOGERAKIS and BASEM BOSHRA, NICOLAS VAN PRAET of The Gazette contributed to this report
From the Montreal Gazette

PAUL CHIASSON, CP / Police seized two homes owned by Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher yesterday in a compound at Contrecoeur, on the South Shore.

Hells Angels leader Maurice Boucher no longer has two first-degree-murder charges to worry about. He has 15.

The largest operation against biker gangs in Canadian history fingered Boucher yesterday for 13 additional killings and nabbed every member of his elite squad, the Nomads.

Police conceded the operation won't cripple the Hells for long. "It's going to destabilize them at least for a while," said Capt. Michel Martin of the Surete du Quebec. "With all the seizures of their assets, homes and cars, they're going to be busy with their lawyers and in the courts. And we hope that they'll be in jail for a very long time."

Police allege Boucher systematically ordered the deaths of top-level enemies in other drug gangs over the past six years, not stopping even when he was behind bars. And police say his orders led to the slaying of an innocent man who responded when the assassin yelled out his first name - Serge. The hit man was looking for another Serge, a Dark Circle member.

Suspected with Boucher in eight of the killings is his 25-year-old son, Francis, who is already serving a year in prison on a weapons offence. In addition to bringing charges against both Bouchers, police seized two homes in the family's compound in Contrecoeur, on the South Shore. The father, well known in Quebec by the nickname Mom, is already behind bars because he faces a second trial on charges of ordering the deaths of two prison guards in 1997.

While 138 of his gang members and affiliates were being rounded up throughout the province yesterday, Quebec's most notorious biker sat in his special isolation cell at Tanguay's prison for women. Boucher, 47, is to appear in the Montreal courthouse later this week to face the new charges. But others were being arraigned by video-conferencing last night from the B wing of Bordeaux jail, set aside just for them.

The arrest warrants also name Gerald Matticks, a name well known to provincial police. His acquittal in the mid-1990s because Surete officers planted evidence during a raid led to the Poitras commission into police wrongdoing. Matticks was sought for drug-dealing and gangsterism.

More than 2,000 police officers from the RCMP, Surete, Montreal Urban Community police and more than 27 municipal forces took part in more than 280 searches and seizures that started at the crack of dawn. It was organized by special regional task forces against outlaw biker gangs. And Quebec police forces got help in Hamilton, Ont., and Vancouver to arrest a Nomads member and a gang accountant.

Yesterday's raiders grabbed seven homes in total and 50 vehicles, including 15 motorcycles. And police laid hands on $7.5 million in cash and biker-gang assets. Police believe the illegal drug supply will dry up with so many dealers behind bars.

Police said traditional investigating techniques - surveillance, wiretaps and paid informers - were used to compile evidence before the raids took place. Warrants targeted 42 key players, including Boucher, with numerous plots to assassinate enemies since 1995, just after the bloody war began for control of Quebec's illegal drug trade.

The intended victims were members of the Rock Machine and its hit squad, the Dark Circle. Also targeted for death were those in the Alliance, a group of drug dealers that sided with the Rock Machine against the Hells. Boucher and the other 41 major players also face gangsterism charges that make it illegal to belong to a criminal organization.

Boucher is named in two unsuccessful tries for a mass killing of Rock Machine members at their clubhouses. The first took place in 1996, when a truck painted to look like a Hydro-Quebec vehicle was driven up to a Verdun hangout. It contained 181 kilograms of explosives. The driver was scared off by armed Rock Machine members. The second was in Varennes in 1997, when a package containing 130 sticks of dynamite was delivered to a Rock Machine meeting hall.

A special six-member team of prosecutors is taking care of the arrests. They work for the newly formed proceeds-of-crime squad. [so now they get the proceeds themselves-ed] One prosecutor in the squad said it could be possible to put 42 people on trial at the same time for the most serious charges. "It will be an incredible logistical challenge," Claude Girard admitted. [an expensive challenge - ha ha -ed]

He is one of many provincial prosecutors who has spoken out about chronic underfunding. But he added that the government has given the special squad the necessary budget to deal with the Hells Angels. "They put the resources where they think they are best, while the rest of the system is mired in decrepitude."

McGill law professor Julius Grey said such a mass trial would be impossible. Imagine a defence lawyer for each person accused asking questions one after another, he suggested. "It would last a year and a half."

The last mass trial of that size was held following the 1990 Oka crisis. Quebec's fight against biker gangs is not cheap. The province says it has already spent $85 million on organized crime since 1995, and another $30 million is earmarked for the special anti-biker squads in the next three years.

Public Security Minister Serge Menard said the raids were the culmination of two years of meticulous work. "Police decided instead of working from the bottom up in the organizations, they had to attack the heads of the organizations. And that's why it took so long. "It's very frustrating," Menard said, "because the public have the impression that the police aren't doing anything because the police aren't talking. But I hope everybody understands now that when we aren't talking it doesn't mean we aren't acting." Police arrested 80 of 106 full-patch Hells Angels in the province, Menard added. "Almost all of the full patches are in jail now."

Hells Angels lawyer Benoit Cliche walked into Surete headquarters on Parthenais St. as police briefed reporters on the operation. He marveled at the phalanx of television trucks parked outside. "I'm always surprised that when I go to see a client, reporters know more than the accused himself about the reason for the arrest," Cliche said. "I'm not surprised that the police decided to arrest everyone. Now we're going to see the legality of it all and examine the evidence they claim they have."

Yesterday's sweep even included arrest warrants for a few Hells who have disappeared and are presumed dead. They include Stephane Hilareguy and Paul (Fon Fon) Fontaine. The arrest warrants name every surviving member of the elite Nomads chapter. They include Rene Charlebois, whose wedding last summer caused an uproar because Quebec singers Ginette Reno and Jean-Pierre Ferland were the entertainers for a largely biker-gang crowd. The other Nomads are: David Carroll, Denis Houle, Gilles Mathieu, Richard Mayrand, Normand Robitaille, Michel Rose, Walter Stadnick and Donald Stockford. And two prospective Nomads, Luc Bordeleau and Jean-Richard Lariviere, were also targeted.

The only black member of the Hells organization was also targeted with numerous murder charges. Gregory Woolley got around a worldwide gang rule that no member may be of African descent because he is a favourite of Boucher, who made him a full-patch member of the Rockers, a puppet club for the Nomads.

One ironic twist is that a former Rock Machine member who defected to the Hells in December, Salvatore Brunetti, is named in the arrest warrants as a conspirator to kill members of his former gang. At the briefing, Martin of the Surete was asked what it would take to rid Quebec of the Hells Angels.

"An atomic bomb," he replied after thinking about it for a few seconds. "Although they'd probably still come crawling back."