| Rowdy Crew Lanaudiere Chapter |
| The Lanaudiere based Rowdy Crew motorcycle club has maintained a very low profile. The gang was founded on July 10, 1993 and has since, as a puppet club of the Hells Angels Trois-Rivieres chapter, taken over much of Lanaudiere's highly profitable drug distribution. Shortly after their creation, the group showed that they meant business. Two Joliette police officers approached a suspicious car parked near a bar. But, as the cops approached, |
| a dozen thugs exited the establishment and became aggressive towards the officers. The cops quickly retreated to their car but soon returned with reinforcements. Stéphane Benny, Marcellin Morin, Alain Dugras, Luc Gauthier, and Daniel Saillant were arrested in connection with the incident. Rowdy Crew member Mario Lussier and Hells Angels associate Serge Quesnel were behind the January 21, 1995 murder of the Pelletier gang member Claude "Le Pic" Picard. Lussier drove the getaway car and Quesnel pumped several bullets into Picard. On May 23, 1995, the Bubbles Nightclub on Ch Gascon in Terrebonne was blown up. The bar, which opened only on weekends, was empty when the blast occured at 10pm. The club was frequented by members anf associates of the Rowdy Crew and police believe that the Rock Machine were behind it. The gang's clubhouse -which is surrounded by a three-metre-high cedar fence and equipped with a steel door, floodlights, and security cameras- was bombed on August 23, 1995, by rivals in the Rock Machine. The bomb blasted a hole the size of a garage door in the concrete wall and demolished the basement. The only fatality was the gang's rottweiler guard dog. On October 20, 1995, Montreal's Carcajou Squad arrested six Rowdy Crew members in Le Gardeur and Lavaltrie, east of Montreal. Four were charged with drug possession, one for improper storage of a firearm, another was already wanted by police. Two days later, four members of the club and a Hells Angel were arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder, assault, possession of prohibited weapons, and possession of drugs. The information, police claimed, came from a drug dealer who said he was beaten and threatened by gang members. The Carcajou Squad struck again on November 4, 1995. The anti-gang unit raided a bar just south of Rawdon that was controlled by the Rowdy Crew. Thirty-three sticks of dynamite and ten detonators were confiscated. Rowdy Crew member Guy "Ti-Cul" Mageau disappeared in the spring of 1997. Mageau had an extensive police record and it is believed he was murdered on the behalf of Hells Angels Louis "Mélou" Roy and Sylvain "Baptiste" Thiffault of the Trois-Rivieres chapter. The Rowdy Crew's former president, Serge Lebarasseur, was arrested on extortion charges on May 6, 1998. According to police, he and three associates had tried to extort money from a former associate. When he refused, the group assaulted him and took a motorcycle and water craft. Members Stéphane Lalonde and Steve Poirier were arrested along with associates Sébastien Girard and Hugues Bouchard on March 20, 2000 after having threatened an independent drug dealer. Police were alerted and intercepted their vehicule. Three loaded firearms were found in the vehicule. Terrebonne bar owner Francis Laforest was viciously beaten to death by three bat swinging assailants on October 17, 2000. Laforest had refused to allow the gang's drug pushers into his establishment and, as a result, the Rowdy Crew had him murdered. Shocked by the incident, over 2000 people, including crime reporter Michel Auger, marched in Vieux Terrebonne to honor the man's sacrifice and to protest against criminal intimidation. Maxime Roy, a suspect in Laforest's murder, disappeared a week after the tavern owner's death. Another of the Rowdy Crew's associates, Maxime Beauvais, vanished a short time later. Police arrested two members of the club and five associates on April 10, 2001 in connection with the Laforest murder but the case fell apart. Five were released due to lack of evidence and the other two were charged with drug possession. The Rowdy Crew, despite the increased police pressure after the vicious Laforest incident, continues to flourish. Their impressive castle-like clubhouse in Lavaltrie is valued at $210,300 and their leader is Aurele Brouillete. |
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