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Montreal Mafia arrests are the latest salvo in a decades-long battle against organized crime
Montreal Crime
Thursday's arrests of the alleged leaders of Montreal's Mafia are the latest attempt by Quebec police forces to put a dent in organized crime activities in the province.
Police called the arrests of 11 people 'a very hard blow to organized crime.' They are accused of participating in the murder or attempted murders of several people.
But since the Rizzuto family took control of the Montreal underworld in the late 1970s, there have been a series of spectacular arrests of people accused of being involved in organized crime, as detailed in The Gazette's award-winning podcast The Dark North: Gangs of Montreal. Hosted by Gazette crime reporter Paul Cherry, Gangs of Montreal traces the complicated history of the Mafia, biker gangs and street gangs that have fought for control of the city's lucrative criminal activities.
Here's a look at some previous high-profile police investigations into Montreal's criminal underworld:
Dec. 18, 1997: Montreal police arrested Maurice 'Mom' Boucher, leader of the Hells Angels elite Nomads chapter, which called the shots in the biker war with the Rock Machine gang. More than 160 people were killed in that battle for control of the drug trade in the late 1990s.
'This is a significant arrest,' Lt. Normand Couillard, of the Montreal Urban Community police, said at the time. 'There's a sense that we never get close to getting the guys at the top of the organization.
'Well, here we have one of the leaders.'
Boucher was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two prison guards. He was acquitted in 1998, but he was later convicted of the two murders.
March 28, 2001: Boucher, along with more than 140 other people — from members of the Hells Angels, their puppet clubs to street-level drug dealers — were arrested in a massive police investigation called Operation Springtime. It was the largest one-day police operation of its kind in Canada. About half the Hells Angels in Quebec were arrested that day, including every member of the Nomads chapter. Charges ranged from first-degree murder to gangsterism to drug dealing, and police seized houses, drugs and weapons.
'It's going to destabilize them at least for a while,'' Capt. Michel Martin of the Sûreté du Québec said at the time. ''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.''
Jan. 21, 2004: Vito Rizzuto, then described as the alleged head of the Montreal Mafia, was arrested at his luxury home in Ahuntsic and charged with the murders of three members of New York's influential Bonnano crime family in 1981.
His arrest created a void at the head of Montreal's criminal underworld, a Montreal police investigator told The Gazette at the time.
'Things are going to be pretty messed up in Montreal or overall in Canada, anyway. Everything is going to be fragmented,' the police investigator said. 'Any time someone that high up gets taken down, you're going to have conflicts, internal conflicts. Other people are going to try to take over.'
Nov. 22, 2006: Police arrested 73 people connected to the Montreal Mafia, including Nicolo Rizzuto, Vito's father, who was widely considered to be the real head of the organized crime group. Projet Colisée was a vast operation targeting a criminal ring that operated in five countries, was importing cocaine through Montreal's international airport, and was also involved in bookmaking and extortion.
Guy Ouellette, a retired Sûreté du Québec investigator and an expert on biker gangs, compared the arrests to those in 2001.
'It is as important as Operation Springtime 2001,' he told The Gazette at the time.
'They have arrested the heads of the Mafia (in Montreal), the decision makers. It is important because it is like shutting down the head office, much like the Hells Angels' head office in Montreal was shut down in 2001.'
Nov. 19, 2015: It was a first in Montreal that police arrested the alleged heads of the Hells Angels, the Montreal Mafia and the city's street gangs. The three leaders — Vito Rizzuto's son Leonardo, Salvatore Cazzetta and Gregory Wooley — were accused of co-operating to commit murders and control Montreal's drug trade. Police arrested 48 people, including Rizzuto's lawyer, and seized more than $1.2 million in cash.
The pattern of co-operation between criminal organizations signified 'an alliance,' Sûreté du Québec Chief Insp. Patrick Belanger said at the time. 'Born out of a desire to control territory, particularly drug trafficking ... and to share revenues.'
Rizzuto was acquitted of the criminal charges in 2018 after a judge ruled police illegally wiretapped conversations in his lawyer's office.
