MONTREAL – Montreal police broke their silence yesterday about the weekend killings of two prominent street gang members, saying they believe the targeted hits were likely the result of a dispute “between two people” and not a resumption of a street gang war on Montreal’s streets.
“It’s not a war,” said Charles Mailloux, a chief inspector with the Montreal police.
Chénier Dupuy, leader of the Bo-Gars street gang, was gunned down Friday night in the Anjou borough.
A few hours later, Dupuy’s business partner, Lamartine Sévère Paul, was killed outside his home in Laval.
Mailloux said the dispute was likely over revenue from “drug trafficking and control of certain territory.”
He said he wasn’t surprised to hear that Dupuy had been killed, but he refused to say who the notorious gang leader may have been in conflict with.
However, he did confirm that one hypothesis police are exploring is that Dupuy may have been purged because he wouldn’t agree to work with his long-time rivals as part of a plan to unite the city’s street gangs.
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A source said Tuesday that it is “very possible” that a charismatic street gang leader named Gregory Wooley, who was released from prison last year after serving a 13-year sentence for various crimes, is trying to unify Montreal’s rival gangs, the Blues and the Reds, under his leadership.
The street gangs, which have been traditionally based in St. Michel and Montreal North, have long been bitter rivals.
Mailloux confirmed that the street gangs have become more criminally sophisticated and now have the same stature as traditional criminal organizations like the Hells Angels.
The biker gang has had several members imprisoned over the past decade following large-scale police investigations aimed at dismantling their drug trafficking network.
Wooley, 40, used to be the bodyguard of Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher and is revered by many street gang members for being the first black man to be accepted by the Hells Angels in Quebec.
Wooley had been tried three times for two different murders committed during Quebec’s biker gang war but was never convicted.
Although police are exploring the Wooley angle, they are also investigating whether the double slayings on the weekend could be linked to the impending return to Montreal of alleged Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, who is expected to be released from a Colorado prison in October.
However, Mailloux said police have no confirmation that Rizzuto plans to return to Montreal. His house was put up for sale last year.
“We will see if he maintains his links with other (business) partners or leaves the country,” he said.
The killing Saturday of Riccardo Ruffullo, who was found dead in a penthouse apartment downtown, is likely not linked to the street gang killings, police said. They suspect Ruffullo may have been killed over an outstanding debt.
Mailloux said police are keeping a close eye on Wooley as well as other members of the Hells Angels who will be released from prison soon after being rounded up in Operation Printemps in 2001, a police investigation that crippled the Hells Angels Nomad chapter, which was run by Boucher.
Mailloux said he believes there has been a decrease in the number of street gang-related homicides in Montreal – from 14 in 2007 to only two so far this year – because a special street gang unit called Project Eclipse has been in the gang members’ faces.
“We are in the streets, in the bars and on the ground doing investigations,” he said.
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