Activities | Drug trafficking, homicide, assault, torture, intimidation [1] [2] |
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Rivals |
The Blood Family Mafia, often abbreviated to BFM, is a Canadian street gang active in Quebec.
The gang was founded in 2006 and is mostly active in the St. Lawrence river valley with a strong focus in Quebec City area, the Côte-Nord area and the Chaudière-Appalaches. [5] A gang with the same name was founded in the northern end of Montreal by a Haitian immigrant Valdano Toussaint who was ordered deported back to Haiti in 2008. [6] The style of the BFM is closely modelled after the Bloods gang of Los Angeles. [6] The same gang name was once use by an Haitian-Canadian gang, but is now use by a gang largely French Canadian. [7]
The BFM traditionally paid a 10% "tax" to the Hells Angels, but in 2023 the group came into conflict with the Hells Angels after it ceased paying the "tax". [8] Criminologist Maria Mourani stated in a 2024 interview: "They never liked working for the Hells Angels". [8] The current leader of the BFM is said by the police to be David "Pic" Turmel. [8] Turmel is a 27-year-old man, living in self-imposed exile in Lisbon. [9] The journalist Félix Séguin said of him: "Dave Turmel, 27, is a young man who, even as a teenager, was described as ultra violent. In recent years, he decided to attack the Hells Angels of the Quebec chapter head-on. He and his gang, the Blood Family Mafia, refuse to pay taxes that the Hells charge throughout the province, to authorize independent groups to sell drugs on their territory. Very rare thing, in the case of Quebec, the Hells do not retaliate...They are even negotiating a truce." [10]
The BFM has modelled its tactics after the maras of Central America, and routinely engages in torture, which has led the gang to be considered one of the most violent in Quebec. [8] Mourani said of the gang's use of torture: "It’s not something that is common in Quebec’s street gangs. Is this a new way of doing business? We’ll see." [8] The gang is alleged to have released videos on the internet showing them torturing Hells Angels. [11] In February 2024, members of the BFM were arrested by the Sûreté du Québec in connection with the kidnapping, torture and murder of a man in Saint-Malachie. [12] The Sûreté du Québec stated that the victim was not associated with the Hells Angels. [12] The man was subjected to what the Quebec media called "a night of horror" with his body being burned and his ears cut off. [13] The victim was reported to be a drug dealer who decided to cease working for the BFM and was invited to attend a fare-well party. [13] The victim was beaten several times and subjected to waterboarding three times before his feet were burned. [13]
The attacks of the BFM on the Quebec City chapter of the Hells Angels are said to have badly damaged the image of the Hells Angels in the Canadian underworld along with the contrast between the youthful leaders of the BFM vs. the elderly leaders of the Hells Angels. [14] The journalist Pascal Robdidas reported that the BFM is leading a "rebellion" by various street level drug dealers who have grown tired of paying the exorbitant "taxes" to the Hells Angels in exchange for the privilege of being allowed to sell drugs. [14] The Hells Angels are reported to have formed "baseball teams" to go out and beat up various drug dealers in the regions of Quebec to stop them from defecting over to the BFM. [14]
Roobens Denis, the deputy leader of the BFM was arrested on 1 March in Portugal following an extradition request from Canada. [15] On 30 June 2024, another BFM leader, Guillaume St-Louis Bernier, was arrested in Kelowna by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police following an extradition request from Quebec to British Columbia. [16]
Jimmy Chiasson, Jérémy Chiasson, Jean-Samuel Chiasson, Mathieu Bouchard et Éliane Dinet were arrested for drug trafficking. [17] Stéphane Hébert, 32, Zachary Gagnon, 21, and Ghislain Grenier, 54, are expected to face charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault for the event that occurred in La Baie, Saguenay, on April 15. [18]
Maurice Boucher was a Canadian gangster, convicted murderer, reputed drug trafficker, and outlaw biker—once president of the Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Boucher led Montreal's Hells Angels against the rival Rock Machine biker gang during the Quebec Biker War of 1994 through 2002 in Quebec, Canada. In 2002, Boucher was convicted on two counts of first degree murder for ordering the murders of two Quebec prison officers in an effort to destabilize the Quebec Justice system.
The West End Gang is a Canadian organized crime group in Montreal, Quebec. An Irish mob group originating from the Irish-Canadian ethnic enclave of Pointe-Saint-Charles in the 1950s, the majority of the gang's earnings were initially derived from truck hijackings, home invasions, kidnapping, protection rackets, extortion, and armed robbery, with its criminal activities focused on, but not restricted to, the west side of Montreal. The West End Gang came to prominence via a series of high-profile bank robberies between the 1950s and the 1970s, a period when Montreal was known as "Bank Robbery capital of North America". Due to the gang's control of illegal activity at the Port of Montreal, it moved into drug trafficking and became one of the most influential criminal organizations in Canada.
The Quebec Biker War was a turf war in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, lasting from 1994 to 2002, between the Quebec branch of the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine. The war left 162 people dead, including civilians. There were also 84 bombings and 130 cases of arson. In March 2002, American journalist Julian Rubinstein wrote about the biker war: "Considering how little attention the story has attracted outside Canada, the toll is staggering: 162 dead, scores wounded. The victims include an 11-year-old boy killed by shrapnel from one of the more than 80 bombs bikers planted around the province. Even the New York Mafia in its heyday never produced such carnage, or so terrorized civilians."
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Wolodumir "Walter" Stadnick, also known as "Nurget", is a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster who was the third national president of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Canada. Stadnick is generally credited with turning the Hells Angels into the dominant outlaw biker club in Canada. The journalists Michel Auger and Peter Edwards wrote that much about Stadnick is mysterious, ranging from what is the meaning of his sobriquet "Nurget", to how a unilingual Anglo Canadian from Hamilton became the leader of the then largely French-Canadian Hells Angels. In 2004, the journalist Tu Thanh Ha wrote that Stadnick is "a secretive man little known to the public", but "he is one of Canada's most pivotal organized-crime figures."
Yves "Le Boss" Buteau was a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster, known for being the first national president of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Canada. Buteau began his life of organized crime as a member of the Montreal-based Popeyes biker gang and, by the mid-1970s, he became the club's president. He was instrumental in the Popeyes' merger with the Hells Angels in 1977, and played a significant role in establishing the Angels as a major criminal force in Quebec. In 1983, Buteau was murdered by a drug dealer with ties to a rival gang, the Outlaws.
Frank Cotroni was an Italian-Canadian crime boss of the Cotroni crime family in Montreal, Quebec.
Salvatore "Sal" Cazzetta, also known as "La Barbe", is a Canadian former outlaw biker and gangster who founded the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club and later joined the Hells Angels following the Quebec Biker War. He was also a longtime associate of the Rizzuto crime family of Montreal.
Gregory Woolley was a Haitian-born Canadian mobster associated with the Hells Angels motorcycle club. Woolley was the protégé and bodyguard of Maurice Boucher, a controversial senior Hells Angels leader who led his chapter in a long and extremely violent gang war against the Rock Machine, in Quebec, from 1994 to 2002. Woolley was known in Montreal as the "parrain des gangs de rue".
The Devil's Disciples Motorcycle Club was a Canadian outlaw motorcycle club based in Greater Montreal. Originating in late 1965, the club achieved a short-lived prominence in Montreal and was, for a time, the most powerful motorcycle gang in the city before disbanding in January 1976 as a result of a biker war with the Popeyes, a rival outlaw biker club that would eventually become the first Hells Angels chapter in Canada. The Devil's Disciples gained additional infamy for their assassination attempt on famed French singer-songwriter Johnny Hallyday as well as an internal conflict amongst its members which led to several murders.
Michel "Sky" Langlois is a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster who served as the second national president of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Canada. A founding member of the Popeyes biker gang, which amalgamated with the Hells Angels in 1977, Langlois was convicted as an accessory to murder in the club's internal Lennoxville massacre of 1985, and later of conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the 1994–2002 Quebec Biker War.
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