Maurice “Mom” Boucher is dead. The former leader of the Hells Angels died of throat cancer on Sunday at the Archambault penitentiary in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.
Reputed to be one of the worst criminals in the history of Quebec, Boucher was transferred on June 10 to a palliative care bed in this penitentiary, according to information obtained by our Bureau of Investigation.
It was in this bed that he turned 69 on June 21.
Since his sentence to life imprisonment in 2002 for ordering the murders of two correctional officers, the fallen biker had been incarcerated in an establishment near Archambault, the Special Detention Unit (USD), the only security penitentiary “super-maximum” in Canada.
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 squad of armed officers responsible for intervening with any inmate at risk of escape, which was the usual procedure in his case.
His transfer was carried out in the greatest secrecy in order to avoid any potential overflow in this prison complex where he still enjoyed the respect of several prisoners, according to our sources.
It was also for security reasons that he was admitted to the Archambault not under his name but rather under a number, namely “inmate no. 11”.
No visits are allowed in the medical wing of the penitentiary and the management has made no exception for its famous prisoner.
Morphine
Thin, weak and suffering, the one who was once considered the most powerful criminal biker in the country had fed only liquid food supplements for several days, in addition to constantly needing morphine to calm the pain.
The first traces of his illness date back to 1997, the year he ordered the murders 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 squad arrested him for these premeditated murders.
Then, in the fall of 2015, inmate Boucher himself told his daughter, Alexandra Mongeau, during her visit to the SHU, that her throat cancer had “returned”.
“It’s okay,” he told her at the time.
Both were unaware, however, that the police were recording them without their knowledge at that time, because Boucher was then under investigation for a murder plot aimed at mafia kingpin Raynald Desjardins.
Our Bureau of Investigation had access to these incriminating police recordings which are the subject of the book Le Parloir, published in October 2021.
Many victims
In 1997, Boucher had ordered the murders of the two correctional officers – chosen at random, only because they wore the uniform – to “destabilize the justice system” during the biker war, in addition to wanting to dissuade his killers from collaborating with justice in the event of their arrest.
This was testified to by the person who shot Agent Lavigne, Stéphane “Godasse” Gagné, at the Boucher trial, thus helping to convict his ex-boss.
Gagné nevertheless became an informer and although he received a life sentence for murder, he now benefits from temporary release supervised by the correctional services.
The ex-chief of the Hells is also considered to be the instigator of this bloody war that the biker gang waged once morest the Rock Machine and independent traffickers to monopolize control of the Quebec drug market.
The conflict killed 165 people between 1994 and 2002, including nine innocent victims, according to a compilation by the Sûreté du Québec, including Daniel Desrochers, 11, killed by the explosion of a trafficker’s Jeep in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district. in August 1995.
In addition, 181 attempted murders were committed during this war, claiming 20 other innocent victims, including journalist Michel Auger, who was shot six times in the back in the parking lot of the Journal de Montréal on September 13, 2000.
“It was Mom who placed the order to have Michel killed (…) because of what he was writing regarding them,” retired SPVM commander André Bouchard, who led the team, told the Journal. investigators responsible for elucidating this crime, in a report published in 2021.
Anti-gang law and eviction
It was further to the death of young Desrochers that the federal government had the first anti-gang law passed in Canada in 1997. This law under which Hells are charged each year was also enhanced by additional provisions in 2002, in response to the attempted murder of Michel Auger.
However, it was in the spring of 2014 that Boucher suffered what he considered the ultimate affront.
The motorcycle club of which he had been a member since 1987 and which he led for a decade decided to expel him from its ranks, following a unanimous vote taken in assembly by all of the Hells Angels of Quebec.
Their ex-leader, whose methods were sometimes disputed within the band, was then finally part of “the past”, according to a member of the Hells quoted in court documents obtained by our Bureau of Investigation.
Boucher never digested it, even going so far as to call them “cowards” and to cry revenge, during a discussion with his daughter, who was spied on by the police.
