The West End Gang—the Irish Mafia of Montreal—is a legendary beast. They sprang out of the impoverished southwest of the city, some looking for ways to earn enough just to survive, some wanting more than a job in an abattoir or on a construction site. In that sense, they were no different from other immigrants from Italy and other European countries. A shortcut to wealth was their common goal. And Montreal, with its burgeoning post-WWII population, was ripe for the picking.
The Irish Mob made headlines with a spectacular Brinks robbery in 1976, using the money to broker a major heroin and cocaine trafficking ring. It took over the Port of Montreal, controlling the flow of drugs into the city, drugs which the Mafia funnelled to New York. The West End Gang had connections to the cocaine cartel in Colombia; hashish brokers in Morocco and France; and marijuana growers in Mexico. The gang imported drugs on an enormous scale. One bust that took place off the coast of Angola in 2006 involved 22.5 tonnes of hashish, destined for Montreal.
The West End Gang is a ripping tale that unveils yet another chapter in Montreal’s colorful criminal underworld.
Acknowledgments.
1 The Irish Invasion.
The First Fighting Irish.
Booze and Corruption.
2 "Most of His Children Turned Out To Be Thieves".
Griffintown.
The Point.
3 Calabrians and Sicilians.
"Vic the Egg".
"Le Gros".
"Frankie" Cotroni.
Paolo Violi.
The Ascension of the Rizzutos.
4 Montreal's Jewish Mafia.
Drugs and Death.
The Rackets and the Payoff.
The End of an Era.
5 The Emergence of theWest End Gang.
Frankie.
Rotten at the Top.
6 The Murderous Decades.
7 Bank Robbery Capital of North America.
The Red Hood Gang.
"Machine Gun Molly".
8 Digging for Treasure.
The Trans-Island Tunnel Affair.
The Brockville Heist.
Easier Pickings.
9 The Crime of the Century.
"Is This What You Wanted?".
10 The Rubber Duck Squad.
Warning Shots.
11 Follow the Money.
A Break in the Case.
"It's the Big Fish We Want".
12 An Uncommon Thief.
Helicopter Heist.
13 The King of Coke.
"Mother" Ryan.
Cocaine Cooperative.
14 The Death of Dunie Ryan and Its Fallout.
Special Delivery.
A Dead Man Tells No Tales.
15 The Emperor of Coke.
Colombian Cocaine.
The Dragnet Closes.
16 The MacAllister Family.
Burned by Burns.
The Fallout.
Westlake's Last Bust.
17 Gerald Matticks: King of the Port.
18 The Bloody Biker War.
The Hells Angels in Quebec.
The Bandidos in Ontario.
The Rock Machine in Quebec.
Operation Springtime 2001.
Operation Amigo.
Operation SharQc.
19 The RCMP's Largest Drug Seizure.
22.5 Tons of Hash.
Operation Cabernet.
20 The Gelding of Montreal’s Italian Mafia.
A Marked Family.
The Fall of the Rizzutos.
21 Tobacco: The Mob's Latest Addiction.
22 Montreal's Modern Street Gangs.
The Crack Down Posse.
Ducarme Joseph and Tony Magi.
Gangland: a New Take.
Epilogue.
Bibliography.
Index.
About the Authors.
lawmarine32
Posted August 16, 2011
The title is a little misleading in that this book is about ALL criminals north of the border, not just the Irish. The book is really a collection of snippets about numerous criminals who had their minute in Canada's law enforcement spotlight. Not very "in depth" but it does give you an idea of how Montreal was at one time overrun with perps. Its a nice reference book about the underworld in Montreal.
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Posted February 4, 2013
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Overview