He was once Canada’s most notorious criminal, the public face of a vicious drug-trafficking turf war that left more than 160 dead, forced a massive deployment of police resources and changes to the Criminal Code. Maurice ‘Mom’ Boucher, who was the most prominent king of the Quebec Hells Angels in the late 1990s, has died. Mathieu Lavoie, president of the Quebec prison guards’ union, confirmed the news first reported by La Presse that Mr. Boucher died Sunday of throat cancer at the age of 69. In a statement, the Correctional Service of Canada said Mr. Boucher died at Archambault Correctional Facility “of apparent natural causes.” Mr Boucher has been behind bars for more than two decades for ordering the murder of two members of the prison guards’ union, who were ambushed by chance in 1997. The two murders were part of a plot to destabilize society and strain the faith of Mr Boucher’s supporters, the court heard. Instead, it hastened Mr. Boucher’s downfall after one of the gunmen turned informer. His criminal empire collapsed shortly after, in a major crackdown in 2001. Long unchecked, gang homicide prompted a review of law enforcement tactics in Canada, encouraging the use of joint police teams and specialized prosecutors’ offices, and led to the creation of the new criminal offense of gangsterism. The man other bikers idolized was born on June 21, 1953, in Causapscal, a sawmill town on the Gaspé Peninsula, the eldest of eight children of a construction worker. According to a 1975 presentation, Mr. Boucher dropped out of school in the 9th grade and shoplifted, robbed and stole to feed his drug use. “It has come … at the time of choice,” the report said, stating that Mr. Bowser could clean up and follow in his father’s footsteps. He chose to dive deeper into the criminal life. He joined the Quebec Hells Angels in 1987, after the gang had been weakened by an internal purge where members had been murdered and their bodies dumped in the St. Lawrence. Within a few years, he emerged as an important leader, attracting the attention of the police and the media, who noticed his hustle and the authority he conveyed to other bikers. “For us, Mr. Boucher was like a god,” former gang member Serge Boutin testified in court. The biker war began in 1994 when the Hells Angels claimed a monopoly on drugs at the expense of dealers involved in the fledgling Rock Machine gang. “This is a company, with the difference that it doesn’t sell bananas or cars, but drugs,” prosecutor Yves Paradi told the courts. “Their competition is not Chrysler but Rock Machine and they compete not by buying ads but by killing people.” In 1995, Mr. Boucher and other senior bikers founded Nomads, an elite Hells Angels chapter to lead the war. He was also sentenced to six months in prison for illegal gun possession. While in prison, he befriended the man who would one day seal his fate: Stéphane (Godasse) Gagné. A young, ambitious drug pusher who sided with the Hells Angels, Mr. Gagné had been beaten by Rock Machine supporters instead of stepping on a picture of Mr. Boucher. Impressed by this loyalty, Mr. Boucher took Mr. Gagné under his wing after they were released. By then, an all-out war was being waged on the streets of Montreal. The Hells Angels developed extensive resources, conducting surveillance in disguised vans, compiling photo albums of their enemies, assembling assassination kits with firearms, balaclavas and gloves. “The Hells didn’t just wait until they met their enemies on the road. They were being hunted down like animals,” attorney Randall Richmond said at a subsequent biker trial. More than 160 people died, many of them bystanders, including Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old who was fatally injured by a car bomb. Meanwhile, Mr. Boucher was enjoying the spoils of power. The Hells Angels raked in tens of millions of dollars from the drug trade, enabling him to live on a sprawling estate outside Montreal. He invited a photographer to his home for a crime tabloid to publicize the lavish wedding of one of the Hell’s Angels, an event that featured famous pranksters Jeanette Reno and Jean-Pierre Ferlan. She was enjoying the limelight, pouting at the cameras, flashing victory signs and smiling broadly. But he was disturbed that some of the men had become police informers. The Crown would later allege that Mr. Bowser concocted a plan to destabilize the justice system and secure the loyalty of his men by forcing them to kill law enforcement officials. Picked at random from among guards leaving work at Bordeaux prison in Montreal, Diane Lavigne was shot and killed in June 1997 by Mr. Gagné. Two months later, a second guard, Pierre Rondeau, was killed when Mr. Gagné and another cyclist shot at a prison bus. By the end of the year, however, Mr. Gagné had been arrested and decided to cooperate with the police. Mr. Boucher was acquitted in his first trial after the defense attacked Mr. Gagné’s credibility. The biker boss and his men left the courtroom and, that night, he went to a boxing gala. But on appeal, a new trial was ordered, he was rearrested and convicted in 2002. He still made the news while behind bars. He was the target of failed assassination attempts. In 2015, aged 62, he was simultaneously charged with conspiracy to kill another jailed mobster and investigated for beating another convict in a separate incident. With reports from Emerald Bensadoun in Toronto Our Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
