This is what we learn in the new book La Source , by journalists Félix Séguin and Eric Thibault, to which the late clan chief himself collaborated by breaking the omerta by his confidences on his life within the Mafia. Scoppa, whose real first name is Andrea, was shot dead on the morning of October 21, 2019, in front of the gymnasium where he was going to train in western Montreal.

In the fall of 2014, this 55-year-old millionaire drug trafficker had agreed to become a confidential source for journalist Félix Séguin, from our Investigation Office, by meeting him on multiple occasions and providing him with information on organized crime. Italian.

The Calabrian-born Montrealer, who was among the confidants of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto, then found himself with his younger brother, Salvatore Scoppa, at the center of a bloody power war between them and the new leaders of the Rizzuto clan.

The police had learned one of the reasons for this showdown during the investigation called Magot, where they unwittingly spied on a meeting of the two leaders of the Sicilian clan, Stefano Sollecito and Leonardo Rizzuto - the son of Vito Rizzuto - , with Gregory Woolley, whom the authorities described as the “godfather” of street gangs in Montreal, in August 2015.

The three men no longer trusted the Scoppa brothers and suspected that there was a mole among them.

According to what the two journalists specify in The Source , Andrew Scoppa had acted as an informer for several police investigators for years.

Sollecito, Rizzuto and Woolley were imprisoned as early as November of the same year. Andrew Scoppa was then considered by the police as the interim godfather of the Montreal mafia until his arrest in the Estacade drug investigation in February 2017.

The authors also bring readers to the heart of this investigation which led to the seizure of a hundred kilos of cocaine in the Tour des Canadiens, in downtown Montreal.

The police had notably tracked down the mafia leader by hiding a microphone in his vehicle. Scoppa already said he feared being killed with two bullets "in the coconut".

On May 4, 2019, his brother Salvatore died riddled with bullets during a family celebration, in a hotel in Laval.

Knowing that there was a price on his head and that he might not have long to live, Andrew Scoppa agreed to collaborate on the two journalists' book project by revealing several secrets of the Mafia during a series meetings they have held abroad for security reasons.

Among other things, Scoppa unveils never-before-seen details about the reign of godfather Vito Rizzuto, as well as the murders of his eldest son, Nick Jr, and his father, Nicolo, a decade ago.

Scoppa also opens up about his rivalry with Sollecito, whom he saw as his worst enemy, and the murderous vendetta his brother, Salvatore, allegedly waged at the expense of the Sicilian clan.

"He wanted to kill them all [...] and he had several," he told the authors.

Andrew Scoppa himself has admitted to being involved in murders.

" Yes it's sad. Because in this business, you do it for one reason: money. You take lives for your profit. As far as I'm concerned, when it happened to me personally, it was because it was the only option, ”the feared criminal claimed.

Two months before being killed, the late lord of the Mafia has also confided how he was tormented by anxiety and the fear of dying.

The two journalists explain that in the event of his death, Scoppa had left them the free choice to disseminate his revelations by lifting the confidentiality of his identity.

“If you sow love around you, you get love in return. But if it's blood you're spilling, you should try your own medicine too. He who lives by the sword perishes by the sword. At least that's how I see it, ”he had resigned himself to believe.