Police arrest 10 with help of hit man turned informant
LES PERREAUX
From Friday's Globe and Mail
March 27, 2009
MONTREAL - The quiet villager lived 20 years in the small Quebec
town, far from the centre of the province's bloody biker war.
All neighbours saw in the man was an avid cyclist who pedalled
the hilly roads to strengthen an ailing heart.
But Gérald Gallant wasn't just in Donnacona for the scenic
bike routes along the St. Lawrence River. He was hiding out between
hits.
Police said Mr. Gallant was a contract killer at the centre of
a shifting roster of gangsters accused of carrying out 28 homicides
and 13 attempted murders over three decades, peaking with Quebec's
biker war from 1994 to 2002.
Ten suspects were rounded up yesterday, based on evidence Mr.
Gallant provided after turning informant. An 11th person facing
a murder charge remained at large.
In Donnacona, the news was met with stunned mutters that there
was always something strange about the man.
"I would see him regularly touring around the streets by
bike," said Mayor André Marcoux, who lived three streets
down from Mr. Gallant. "He really kept a low profile."
From his unassuming redoubt near Quebec City, Mr. Gallant was
in the middle of a gang war that eventually killed 160 people,
police said. He and the 11 suspects targeted bikers, street gangsters
and Italian mobsters with little regard for allegiance.
They also had little regard for the innocent. At least one of
the dead and several of the wounded were described by police as
bystanders or victims of mistaken identity.
"I think this may allow me to close the circle," said
Hélène Brunet, a former waitress who was shot in
2000 when a Hells Angels associate used her as a human shield.
She became an outspoken critic of gangs. "It's a great relief
and it restores some of your faith in justice."
Hells loan shark Robert "Bob" Savard died in the attack
on Ms. Brunet.
Mr. Gallant's stunning conversion from prolific hit man to police
witness began in 2001, when he left his DNA at the scene of one
of his final murders.
But it wasn't until an RCMP tip, followed by a DNA match in 2006,
that police started following him. He got wind police were onto
him and fled to Europe in 2006.
Months later, Swiss police snagged Mr. Gallant for credit card
fraud and sent him back to Canada. In 2008, he suddenly and quietly
pleaded guilty to the 2001 murder of Yvon Daigneault, a bar owner
in the Laurentian town of Ste-Adèle.
The plea was unusual for a man facing a tough automatic sentence
of life in prison, with no chance at parole for 25 years. Police
made it known Mr. Gallant claimed he had killed 26 people, but
they added few details.
The whiff of possible exaggeration dissipated rapidly yesterday,
as police unveiled the list of 11 people charged with murder,
including one-time leaders and members of competing Quebec gangs.
Lieutenant François Doré, a senior provincial police
spokesman, refused to say if a deal was struck with Mr. Gallant,
who is not currently charged with any other crimes.
Gang expert and author Julian Sher said some deal may be in the
works, but hired killers occasionally seek to settle accounts.
"I wouldn't call it conscience, but there is an element
of wanting to clear the air, or wanting to get back at past masters,"
he said.
Some arrested suspects, such as Frédéric Faucher,
a former leader of the Rock Machine, and Raymond Desfossés,
an alleged high-ranking member of the West End Gang, are alleged
to have ordered hits.
One of the more prominent dead was Paul Cotroni, the son of Montreal
mob boss Frank Cotroni, who died in 1998.
