Jimmy Cournoyer from Montreal appeared in a District Court in Brooklyn on charges of smuggling marijuana.

This article indicates that his list of contacts includes high profile contacts such as Gerry Matticks who once controlled the port in the city and Boucher of the Hell's Angels.

Now in Montreal we hear far more about RIzzuto, the Calbarians and the Hell's ANgels than we do about the West End Gang which according to reporters is basically a losse connection of Irish and French criminals in and around Point St Charles.

How active are they now? And were they ever at the top of the underworld in Montreal? When Frank 'Dunie' Ryan was running things many in Montreal seemed to think he was. He certainly did and it got him killed.

But along with this article I wondered if anyone had any more in depth knowledge on how prominent the West End elements are now and how influential they were and are in the bigger picture on the Montreal scene.

I know they have said to have faded somewhat since the Matticks bust in the early 00's but they still get busted all the time and Maloney was considered a big bust I know. The Feds tailed him for a long time.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Cournoyer+linked+tier+Montreal+underworld/8218586/story.html

i've always been interested in the west end gang, but the info we get on them is always slim pickings. from what i've gathered, not too sure how accurate this is, they have always been a rather small group that seems to concentrate almost exclusively on the logistical side of things like cooridinating the drug shipments through their contacts in and around the ports. i don't really remember ever hearing anything non-port related with them.

The port is everything. I know some of the Canadian guys know some of the Boston guys and they have connections in New York but I also know that at one time at least the West End guys were stick up crews who pulled off some of the most audacious heists in Canadian history as well as one or two in the US.

Lot of the Irish crews at one time appeared to be heavily involved in heists and even when you think back to guys like Trigger Lee Burke who was sent to Boston from New York to track down the Brinks Mat armored car robbers there appears to be the links too and the IRA funded their cause by doing the same in cities around the globe.

Now I know the West End Gang aint really all Irish, they have lots of French guys around too and are pretty tight with the Hell's Angels. But one thing one of their old guys did say was that they didn't have as big an Irish mob as Boston cos they didn't have the same amount of Irish in the city but what they did have was tight knit and low profile so I think FF you got that right on that account.

One thing one one of the Hell's Angeles said and I cant remember where I saw this was that they preferred the West End guys and the Irish to working with the Rizutto's or whoever the fuck the LCN clan happens to be.

But though they say they was never as big as the Irish mob in Boston they was at one time more succesful. As recent as 2002 Matticks was seen by some as one of the leading men in the Montreal underworld.

I mean, you control the port you control the flow of drugs in the city. Bet the mob would love to have their own guys in that port. In a way they do of course as they work very closely with the West End Gang but things aint always been plain sailing between the two for sure.

you make some good points sean, and i wasn't trying to diminish the importance of the port influence in montreal, after all, look at what the rizzutos have been able to accomplish with their cocaine importation! look at the five families, the most successful families have always been the ones with strongest influence in the ports!

What, if any, West End Gang members are in prison right now?

From what I know Gerry Matticks has still to be released last I heard he got turned down last parole hearing many thinking he was gonna walk but his son Donald is out. He and Hell's Angel Boucher still call the shots from inside the joint. Gerry Matticks may be out now I haven't looked closely at the Montreal scene for a while which truth be told was why I posted this thread.

Of course there are loads of West point guys in the joint just as there are loads of mob guys and outlaw bikers, I'n not familiar enough to the Montreal scene to know the who's in and who's out to any degree of accuracy.

Shane Maloney is looking at time after a bust and for beating a Federal officer. Allegedly the West End guys and the Hell's Angels have a connection to a cartel.

There is a poster on the RD who replied to me once regarding who controls the Port of Montreal today. His answer: the West End Gang.

What prison is Matticks in? The same Supermax as Boucher?

I know for a fact Gerry Matticks is 100% out of prison. Has been for over a year.

I googled around earlier and found the same.

Yeah he is out now I figured he may be but like I said I haven't been paying close attention and weren't 100% sure. But thanks.

Link:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/mobile/ne...5458/story.html

Excerpts:

Alleged Rizzuto associate pleads guilty to trafficking conspiracy
By Paul Cherry, GAZETTE Crime reporter
Thursday, May 23, 2013

MONTREAL — A New York based mobster has pleaded guilty in an American court to taking part in a massive drug trafficking conspiracy that has deep ties to Montreal.

According to a statement issued Thursday by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Alessandro Taloni, described by authorities as an alleged “associate of the Rizzuto organized crime family,” entered the plea in a courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y. He admitted to trafficking in more than 80 kilograms of cocaine and laundering millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds.

[snip]

“Taloni was charged with narcotics and money laundering offences as a part of an indictment in which 10 members of a Montreal-based drug distribution organization affiliated with the Rizzuto and Bonanno crime families, the Hells Angels, and the (Mexican-based) Sinaloa Cartel have been charged with trafficking over $1 billion worth of marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy into the United States between 1998 and 2012,” the attorney’s office said through the statement.

The attorney’s office credited several police forces for the investigation, including the Laval police.

Taloni, part of the Bonanno crime family, was alleged to have acted as Cournoyer’s distributor in the U.S. and “was personally sent from Montreal to Los Angeles to receive those drug proceeds (from the sale of marijuana) and to purchase cocaine from the Mexican sources.” ....

He wasn't the kingpin. I've met this guy 2-3 times. He is a fall guy. He got his hands very dirty in all aspects of this operation and he has no chance in court he will take the fall. The real bosses don't touch 1% of what this guy touched to make all that money he had.

Here another article I found that sheds more light.


LINK:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/...rges_alone.html

Article:


MONTREAL — Montreal playboy Jimmy Cournoyer and six other men were arrested last year on charges of running a $1-billion drug trafficking operation that shuttled marijuana into the United States and spirited Mexican cocaine back into this country.


But the alleged criminal mastermind, who has reputedly worked closely and nurtured ties with both the Hells Angels and Vito Rizzuto’s Montreal mob outfit, now finds himself very alone with just over a week before his trial begins in New York City.


In a New York court Thursday, the last of Cournoyer’s co-accused, Alessandro Taloni pleaded guilty to his role as the so-called Beverly Hills-based manager for the drug ring’s cocaine operations, and will face a 10-year sentence.


“Now that we’ve cleared away all of this floatsam and jetsam, it will just be Mr. Cournoyer,” Gerald McMahon, the Montrealer’s New York attorney, said in an interview. “Everybody else is out.”


The string of guilty pleas over the last few weeks, and the decision by at least one of the men, Jose Castillo-Medina, to testify against his alleged partner in crime stacks the deck against a man who once lived the high life with a Brazilian model girlfriend, a $2-million sports car and celebrity friends in his Rolodex.


“It’s going to come down to a bunch of people saying Jimmy was the big guy, but they have a huge, huge, huge motive and incentive to lie. Jimmy is the primary target. Jimmy’s a big name, a big shot . . . and so when you’re a big target you got people coming after you,” McMahon said.


“The government would certainly like to get a big notch on their belt and that notch would be Mr. Jimmy Cournoyer. It’s my job to see that that doesn’t happen.”


The allegations against the 33-year-old Cournoyer are devastating. He is charged with running the trafficking operation between January 2002 and February 2012 that smuggled thousands of kilograms of pot into the U.S. through the Akwesasne native reserve near Cornwall, Ont. It was then transported to New York City and distributed to street dealers under the watchful eye of the city’s infamous Bonanno crime family.


He is also charged with importing cocaine purchased from Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel into the United States for distribution and for smuggling it back into Canada.


McMahon said federal prosecutors are working around the clock on the case, filing last-minute court documents at all hours of the day and night.


“I would say this. I have my work cut out for me,” he said.


One of the most recent documents, which was filed by prosecutors arguing that the jury should remain anonymous to prevent intimidation or retribution, lays out Cournoyer’s long history in the drug world both in Quebec and Ontario.


He was first arrested in 1998 at the age of 19 for growing marijuana out of the Laval apartment he shared with his brother. During the investigation, he boasted to an undercover agent that he was starting up a second, larger growing operation at a chalet in the Laurentians. He pled guilty to production and trafficking charges, but paid a fine and stayed out of jail.


Two years later, in December 2000, Cournoyer was caught by police on the Kanesatake native reserve providing “large quantities of marijuana” to be smuggled into the U.S. He pled guilty four days after the arrest, but showed no signs of slowing down.


Instead, the court documents reveal, a Peel Regional Police probe, found Cournoyer had expanded into the production and distribution of ecstasy. When police moved in to make an arrest after purchasing 10,000 ecstasy pills from one of Cournoyer’s co-conspirators on Dec. 2, 2001, Cournoyer tried to get away by pulling a gun from his waistband that was later revealed to contain “armour-piercing bullets capable of punching through the typical bullet-proof vests worn by most law enforcement officers.”


Cournoyer was jailed again in 2005 for ecstasy trafficking and gun charges in Peel Region and, while in prison, found guilty of vehicular manslaughter for the death of a passenger in his car in 2004. He was released in February 2007 and set about rebuilding a drug network that was “in tatters” because of mismanagement and theft.


That task was further complicated by the terms of his release, which had him in a halfway house for six months and forced to keep a legitimate job. But the prosecutors say he was able to get an encrypted Blackberry device into his tightly-controlled residence and to hold drug meetings while riding the Montreal subway system to the legitimate job he was required to maintain while on probation.


Later, he set up a “cover” job that let him focus on the drug operations full time while staying at the halfway house.


“It was during these day-long sojourns that Cournoyer began meeting with his powerful criminal associates in the Montreal underworld in order to obtain financing for new drug ventures and put his criminal affairs in order,” the court documents state.


That included paying off a substantial debt to the Hells Angels and meeting with “high-level members of the Rizzuto crime family” find a willing partner as he smuggled cocaine into Canada. He also allegedly provided weapons to both the bikers and the mafia in Montreal.

Link:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/May14/2014May9.php

Alleged Rizzuto Organized Crime Family Associate Sentenced To 10 Years Imprisonment

Friday, May 9, 2014
Defendant Allegedly Trafficked Over 80 Kilograms of Cocaine and Laundered Millions of Dollars in Narcotics Proceeds

Earlier today, at the United States Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, Alessandro Taloni, an alleged associate of the Montreal-based Rizzuto organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release. In May 2013, Taloni pled guilty to cocaine trafficking charges contained in a superseding indictment returned on April 3, 2013. As part of his sentence, Taloni will also forfeit $2,663,191 that federal agents seized from multiple locations in California that Taloni used to store narcotics and drug proceeds.

The sentence was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and James J. Hunt, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, New York (DEA).

“Taloni used his connections to powerful international organized crime groups to distribute deadly narcotics, worth tens of millions of dollars, across North America. His prosecution and sentence demonstrate this Office’s unrelenting commitment to swiftly pursuing and prosecuting transnational organized crime beyond state and national borders,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. Ms. Lynch extended her grateful appreciation to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Anaheim Police Department, and the Beverly Hills Police Department for their work on the case. Ms. Lynch also expressed her appreciation to the Laval Police Service for their invaluable assistance during this multi-year international investigation.

DEA Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Hunt stated, “This sentencing is the end result of international, federal, local and state law enforcement’s collaboration. Law enforcement’s effort to thwart organized crime led to identifying Taloni and his associates’ international drug network that facilitated the Sinaloa Cartel’s cocaine distribution network in the United States.”

Taloni and ten members of a Montreal-based drug distribution organization affiliated with the Rizzuto and Bonanno crime families, the Hells Angels, and the Sinaloa Cartel were charged with narcotics and money laundering offenses in connection with trafficking over $1 billion worth of marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy into the United States between 1998 and 2012. The organization transported tens of thousands of pounds of marijuana from outdoor growers in British Colombia to Montreal, Canada, and controlled numerous warehouses in and around Montreal for the manufacture of ecstasy and hydroponic marijuana. The drugs were smuggled into the United States using transportation networks run by the Hells Angels and Native American co-conspirators from the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation along the U.S./Canadian border. Once the drugs were sold in the United States, much of it by distributors tied to the Bonanno crime family in New York, the organization used millions of dollars in drug proceeds to purchase more cocaine from the powerful Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico for exportation to and distribution in Canada. Taloni was personally sent from Montreal to Los Angeles, California, to receive those drug proceeds and to purchase cocaine from the Mexican sources and export cocaine to Canada.

During the course of the government's investigation, federal agents seized approximately $1 million in drug proceeds and 49 kilograms of cocaine from searches of Taloni's Mercedes Benz sedan, Beverly Hills residence, and a stash house operated by Taloni in Beverly Hills. Search warrants executed at other stash houses operated by the organization in the Los Angeles area resulted in the seizure of an additional 34 kilograms of cocaine and approximately $1,600,000. In total agents seized more than $10,000,000 in narcotics proceeds from the organization.

The government's case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Steven L. Tiscione, Gina M. Parlovecchio, Amir H. Toossi, and Tanisha Payne.

The Defendant:

ALESSANDRO TALONI

Age: 38