Claude Dubois
Dubois Gang
    Claude, who would become  the most famous of  the Dubois brothers, was the sixth  of eleven children. The  family grew  up in the neighborhood of St-Henri. The family was extremely poor and just scraped by on their father's $25 a week job at the Black Horse tavern in downtown Montreal.

     Dubois children basically grew up on the streets, doing what they  could to survive. During World  War II the  neighborhood kids would gather outside the near-by train station and scramble  for  the loose change that the  passing Canadian soldiers  would throw. Once, as Claude chased  a five cent  piece, an older boy savagely stepped on  his fingers, threw him on  the ground, and snatched the  money. But the Dubois brothers were loyal to one another  and Claude's brothers Jean-Guy  and Raymond quickly
came to his  rescue. The bully received a severe thrashing. The boys  were soon stealing fruit from merchants and selling them around the neighborhood at half the price. 

     Dubois dropped out of school after finishing the eighth grade and found work as a construction worker, where he developed into a muscular and intimidating young man. One day, a police cruiser happened to pull  up as Claude and a f riend were stealing bags of chips out of  a delivery  truck on Delinelle street. He was arrested  and, for the fourth time in two years, made  an appearance before a court. The judge decided to teach the young man a lesson and Claude, at the age of 16, received a two year prison sentence.

     Upon  his release Claude began working as a maitre d at the Jazz Hot club  where he met Harry Smith, a well known Montreal loanshark. Smith had heard of Dubois' fierce reputation and offered him  a job as a collector. The two soon became  partners, with $75 000 on the street split between 250 customers. Upon Smith's death, Dubois took over the highly profitable operation.

     Life was looking good for Claude. Aside from loansharking, he was also making money from a fencing operation  with Yvon Belzil. The two bought stolen merchandise  at a fraction of the  price and sold it at a mark up.

     The  Dubois brothers, with Claude at the head, expanded their  influence and, by the late 1960s, had  become one of the city's top criminal  organizations. They now had a  large gang of enforcers and had become highly involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and prosititution. They often worked with the city's Italian Mafia and Frank Peter "Dunie" Ryan, the West End Gang's drug kingpin.

     In  1972, Richard Désormiers, Frank Cotroni's brother-in-law, began making t rouble in Dubois
controlled  bars. This went on for over a year and  Claude held several  meetings with  Cotroni in order to rectify  the situation but  nothing was ever  done. Finally, in order to save  face, the Dubois decided to act.

     On July 20, 1973, Claude Dubois, wearing  a huge hate and dressed  in an odd Mexican-style  costume, broke the  window of a Chinese restaurant on Sainte-Catherine street and assaulted a man with a crowbar. He was arrested and jailed. The incident and  the  costume had  been cleverely  orchestrated  by Dubois and  his accomplices to provide him with a solid  alibi for when Désormiers would be murdered.

     But the hit did not occur that night and Dubois was furious. He refused  to delay it any longer and, two nights later, Donald Lavoie  and Claude Dubeau walked  into the Mon Pays bar and pumped several  shots into Désormiers. When  Jacques-André Bourassa, the  manager, tried to  intercede, he was  also killed. As  all this happened  inside, Yvon Belzil's responsibility was to steal Désormiers' white Cadillac. 

     By the mid-1970s, Dubois headed an organization that many considered more powerful than the city's Italian Mafia Family. On April 21, 1976, in a interview he granted the CBC Connections team, Claude  Dubois demonstrated how fearless of  the Italians he was: "The only difference between us and the Cotronis is the Cotronis, when they saw  it hot with the cops they run  away. When it's hot we stay there, we're gonna face the fuckin thing."

     In that same interview, Claude openly told the  world his true feelings of Mafia boss Paolo Violi: "They put Violi as a big king, to me Violi's a punk. He tried to go and collect a guy for $100 a week with a punch on the nose. You don't call that a king. For me, he's a punk, no?"

     Claude Dubois' world was shattered  in 1980 when Donald Lavoie, a trusted  associate who had participated in the Désormiers murder, turned informant after overhearing that there was a contract on  his life. Knowing that Lavoie could put him  away for life, Dubois plotted to have the informant murdered. The gang  discussed installing  a car bomb but Claude's brother Adrien  rejected the idea because of the strong possibility of police officers being injured or killed.

     With the  information Lavoie provided, Dubois, Yvon Belzil, and Claude  Dubeau were charged with the  murders of Richard Désormiers and Jacques-André Bourassa. On April 8, 1982, the anti-gang  police squad  arrested Dubois at his home in Écho Lake, in the  Laurentians, and Belzil at his Saint-Léonard home. Claude Dubeau, 40, who was already behind bars for attempted murder, was informed of the new charges. The next morning, the three  accused appeared before the judge and pled non-guilty to charges of first-degree murder.

     Lavoie's testimony was staggering. He admitted to shooting  Bourassa and claimed that Dubeau murdered Désormiers, all on Dubois' orders. Claude Jodoin, a former Journal de Montreal reporter who  had become close to the gang, also testified against his former friends. Dubois took the stand in his own defense. He denied having known  Désormiers and alleged to have heard about his death in the newspapers. He also denied being in conflict with  Francesco Cotroni and described him as a "friend".

     On November 12, 1982, after  a ten week trail, the three gangsters were found guilty. A  month later, on December 8, Dubois, Dubeau, and Belzil were  sentenced to life  imprisonment. The three, wearing leg irons and handcuffs, showed no emotion when their sentences were handed down.

     The Quebec Court of Appeals  reduced their sentences to ten years  in March of 1989  because, they ruled, that Jacques-André Bourassa's murder had  not been premeditated. Dubois was released in the early 1990s and seems to have  retired from criminal activities, living off  the vast  fortune he probably accumulated over the years.