| Roger "Le Gros" Provencal |
| Roger Provencal was born in the mid 1930s and grew up in Montreal’s east end. He became the head of a band involved in armed robbery, drug trafficking, loansharking and extortion. The gang, which also included brother Bernard, was dubbed by police and in the media as he Provencal Clan. Provencal’s associates included Richard and Robert Foley, brothers who police and the media have linked to the notorious West End Gang.
On August 20, 1968, Provencal was shot twice in a Ste. Catherine St. nightclub. Witnesses saw someone at a nearby table stand up and several shots at Provencal. After the would-be hitman fled the scene, Provencal struggled to hit feet and made his way outside, where he hailed a taxi and went to a hospital for treatment. |
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| Provencal was among those charged with a daring 1976 Brink’s armoured truck robbery that netted its authors $2.8 million in cash. One of the co-accused, Réjean Duff, allegedly admitted to police that while he did not participated in the actual robbery, he had stole one of the vans used for the act. Shortly after Duff made his statement and was released, he vanished. It was whispered that he had killed for giving information to authorities.
Provencal’s former driver, Bernard Colangelo, testified against him at his trial. Colangelo said on the stand that shortly after the robbery, Provencal gave him a $1,000 gift and told him that he had large sums of cash hidden in the Ste. Anne des Lacs area. Provencal was acquitted of the robbery in March 1984, but he was hardly out of the woods. Just two weeks ago, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for a 1981 armoured truck robbery that netted his crew $2 million. A year earlier, he also received a six year sentence after he pleaded guilty to setting up a large illicit drug laboratory in Laval. Provencal’s crew had set up a lucrative operation producing hashish from bulk marijuana. Police seized 350 pounds of hashish and 150 pounds of marijuana when they busted the laboratory in March 1982. Before he pleaded guilty, Provencal’s brother-in-law Paul Gill testified against him. Gill said on the stand that he worked for Provencal in the drug lab and was responsible for drug deliveries. As if things weren’t bad enough for Provencal, he learned that his brother Bernard was cooperating with the police. After being sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring to import cocaine into Canada, Bernard Provencal complained that his associates refused to pay him money he was owed and took his revenge by spilling the beans. The informer implicated 250 criminals, including his brother, and gave information on 116 murders, armed robberies, loansharking networks, and gambling dens. Roger Provencal was releasex from prison in 1989 and quickly re-established himself as a force in the city’s east end. He supposedly became involved in drug trafficking and was seen meeting with senior members of the Montreal Mafia, the West End Gang and Hells Angels chieftain Maurice "Mom" Boucher. On September 2, 1991, the body of Robert Décarie, one of Provencal’s top underlings, was found in the trunk of his Mercedes Benz in Laval. The next year, it was Provencal’s turn. As he left a store on Beaubien St. on November 9, he was shot at least twice by masked gunmen, stumbled about ten feet, and then crumbled to the ground. He had on him more than $20,000 in cash. Reached for comment in prison, Bernard Provencal told the media: “(Roger) died like he lived: with violence.” |