Maurice “Mama” Boucher is dead. The former leader of the Hells Angels died of throat cancer in Archambault prison in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines on Sunday.
Boucher, considered one of the worst criminals in Quebec history, was transferred to a palliative care bed at that correctional facility on June 10, according to information from our Bureau of Investigation.
Former Hells Angels number one Maurice “Mom” Boucher has died. follow us on @JdeMontreal and @tvanews Details on the ending of this latest chapter of serious crime in Quebec.
– Felix Seguin (@felixseguin) July 10, 2022
In this bed he turned 69 on June 21st.
Since being sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for ordering the killing of two correctional officers, the fallen motorcyclist has been in a facility near Archambault, the Special Detention Unit (USD), the only “super-maximum” security prison in Canada, imprisoned.
Despite the very advanced state of his illness, which he had been battling for seven years, Boucher was escorted to the Archambault by a special group of armed officers who were responsible for intervening with any inmate who was at risk of escaping, which in his case was the usual procedure was .
His transfer was made in the utmost secrecy to avoid possible flooding of this prison complex where, according to our sources, he still enjoyed the respect of several prisoners.
Also for security reasons, he was not identified by his name but by a number, namely “Inmate No. 11”.
No visits are allowed in the medical wing of the penitentiary, and management has made no exception for their famous prisoner.
morphine
Thin, weak and ailing, the man once thought to be the country’s most powerful criminal biker had taken only liquid supplements for several days, and he constantly needed morphine for pain relief.
The first traces of his illness date back to 1997, the year he ordered the assassination of correctional officers Diane Lavigne and Pierre Rondeau.
On December 18, 1997, Boucher arrived at Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal to undergo surgery for a tumor in his throat when police officers from the Carcajou Unit arrested him for these premeditated murders.
Then, in the fall of 2015, during her visit to SHU, inmate Boucher himself told his daughter, Alexandra Mongeau, that her throat cancer had “returned.”
“It’s okay,” he told her at the time.
However, neither of them were aware that the police were recording them without their knowledge at the time, as Boucher was being investigated for a plot to murder Mafia kingpin Raynald Desjardins at the time.
Our investigative agency had access to these incriminating police records, which are the subject of the book Le Parloir, published in October 2021.
Many victims
In 1997, Boucher had ordered the killings of the two law enforcement officers – randomly chosen simply because they wore the uniform – to “destabilize the judicial system” during the Biker War and to dissuade his killers from cooperating with the judiciary in the event of their arrest .
This was witnessed by the person who shot Agent Lavigne, Stéphane “Godasse” Gagné, in the Boucher trial and thereby helped convict his ex-boss.
Despite this, Gagné became a whistleblower and although he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, he now benefits from a provisional release under correctional supervision.
The former Hells boss is also credited with instigating the bloody war the biker gang waged against the Rock Machine and independent dealers to monopolize control of Quebec’s drug market.
The conflict killed 165 people between 1994 and 2002, including nine innocent victims, according to a compilation by Sûreté du Québec, including Daniel Desrochers, 11, who was killed in August 1995 by the explosion of a trafficker’s jeep in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district.
In addition, 181 assassination attempts were made during that war, resulting in 20 other innocent victims, including journalist Michel Auger, who was shot six times in the back on September 13, 2000 in the Journal de Montréal parking lot.
“It was Mama who gave the order to have Michel killed (…) because of what he had written about her,” retired SPVM commander André Bouchard, who led the team, told those responsible for solving this crime Investigators in the Journal a report published in 2021.
Anti-Gang Law and Eviction
In fact, the federal government passed Canada’s first anti-gang law in 1997, following the deaths of young Desrochers. This law, under which Hells are charged each year, was amended with additional provisions in 2002 in response to the attempted murder of Michel Auger.
However, in the spring of 2014, Boucher suffered what he saw as the ultimate affront.
The motorcycle club, to which he had belonged since 1987 and which he led for a decade, decided to expel him from its ranks after a unanimous vote by all of Quebec’s Hells Angels in assembly.
Their former leader, whose methods were sometimes controversial within the band, was finally “a thing of the past,” according to a Hells member quoted in court filings obtained by our Bureau of Investigation.
Boucher never got over it, even going so far as to call them “cowards” and scream revenge during a discussion with his daughter, who was being spied on by the police.