Félix Séguin - Inside the Montreal Mafia: The Confessions of Andrew Scoppa

Flix Sguin and ric Thibault

Translated by Julia Jones

It was a hand. A left one. Broad and thick enough to suggest it belonged to a hefty guy who could be found pumping iron at the gym. The red blanket the police had draped over the body wasnt large enough to cover it completely. It was the only part of him that was visible in the photo. I couldnt help but feel there was something strangely familiar about that hand.

On the morning of October 21, 2019, Flix Sguin and I were supposed to be taking a break from organized crime to spend our evening covering an event that promised to overshadow every other news headline. It was the day of the federal election, and wed been assigned to cover the vote. But we wouldnt be reporting on election night. I wouldnt even get the chance to cast my ballot. A murder committed on that sunny fall morning would monopolize our thoughts and occupy our entire workday.

A man was shot dead by at least one bullet to the head on Monday morning in a Pierrefonds parking lot, in the West Island, the Journal de Montral and TVA Nouvelles websites proclaimed in the wake of the crime, which occurred at around 8 a.m.

The year had been marked by a surge in revenge killings within the ranks of the Hells Angels, the Italian Mafia and Quebecs street gangs. As of that morning, there had already been 15 organized crimerelated killings in less than ten months in the Greater Montreal area. One more victim, I thought, brushing the murder aside.

There seem to be quite a few investigators here, our colleague Maxime Deland from QMI Agency nevertheless messaged me, sensing that the heavy police presence might point to a high-profile case.

At 10:35 a.m., Deland followed up his text with a striking photo hed taken of the crime scene, just outside a gym on Saint-Jean Boulevard. Officers from the Montreal police service (SPVM) had cordoned off the area with red police tape.

Under the red blanket the police had draped over him, it was just possible to make out the lifeless body of a man stretched out on his back. Proving that they really are everywhere in Montreal and not just on road construction sites, orange traffic cones had been used to hold the blanket in place...

A cap that the victim must have been wearing at the time of the shooting lay on the greyish asphalt, a few steps away from the body. The mans left hand stuck out from beneath the blanket.

Just two months earlier, Flix and I had spent nearly a week in Europe with a former acting leader of the Montreal Mafia who had a price on his head back in the city.

You know, I have to work out first thing in the morning. I need it like a junkie needs a fix. It clears my head and does me good. If I dont, I feel like shit and Im not at my best, wed heard time and time again from this man with piercing eyes, who took great care of his physique and whom some members of the criminal underworld had nicknamed Big Guy.

Over the past five years, the fearsome gangster had made the remarkable decision to break the Italian Mafias all-important code of omert by agreeing to become Flixs confidential source.

The previous summer, the influential Mafia clan leader had agreed to collaborate with us on our Montreal Mafia book project by sharing his insider information, knowledge and personal experience. It was a unique project in the history of organized crime in Canada, since it was exceptionally rare for a high-ranking Mafioso to agree to cooperate with journalists. The shrewd criminal strategist, whose intelligence had been lauded by more than one police officer, even believed hed supply us with too much material for a single book. According to him, wed need to write two.

For the past several months, hed known his life was in danger. So had we. Wed therefore decided it would be less risky to hold our meetings for the project in a far-off location, across the Atlantic, in late August 2019.

It might be him. I have a funny feeling, I told Flix over the phone after examining Maximes photo. We immediately reached out to our police contacts to try to identify the victim as quickly as possible.

Previously, Id had a source who was a card-carrying member of a biker gang. This was during the bloody war between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine over control of the Quebec drug trade, back in the 1990s.

Our first interaction had narrowly averted disaster. Id written an article in the Journal de Qubec about a financial dispute between the man and a citys government, and hed called me up to give me a piece of his mind. I think I was pretty fair, was the gist of my response over the phone. I didnt publish your home address in the article. If the police turn up at your door to arrest you, that might be a different matter... Id immediately regretted my arrogance, but luckily, the tone of the conversation softened, our discussion became more respectful and we ended up talking for several minutes. The next day, the biker had called me back to give me his pager number. Over the following years, hed passed along various bits of behind-the-scenes information on the Quebec Biker War, which had left more than 160 dead. Why? Most likely because he and his gang thought my articles would serve their own interests at the expense of the rival gang.

My first encounter with the Mafioso I thought Id recognized in the photo had been very different. I hadnt been as patronizing as Id been with the biker, for one thing. There had been occasional flickers of something very intimidating in the intense gaze of this man of Italian origin, whod insisted on being treated with respect.

The last time Id spoken to the man Flix and I referred to as the source was the Friday before that election day morning. Hed insisted on meeting again, here in Montreal, to pass along some documents. Hed also told us he was planning to leave the country in the very near future, for an indefinite period. Ive got to clear out until this blows over, hed said, his plane ticket already in hand.

A few days earlier, our police contacts had strongly advised us not to risk another meeting with the Mafioso, who was living on borrowed time. If a killer tailing him was ever lucky to eliminate him, they wouldnt hesitate to liquidate anyone with the misfortune of being in his company to avoid leaving witnesses to the crime, wed been told more than once. Wed wisely followed this advice: on our return from Spain, wed limited our interactions to over the phone.

The man had called me three days before that fateful Monday. As wed said our goodbyes, Id wished him a nice weekend and told him to take care of himself. He wasnt the type of Mafioso to walk around surrounded by bodyguards, but he took plenty of precautions to cover his back. It hadnt been enough.

At 11:40 a.m., I received a brief text message from a police source. I was still staring at my phone screen in disbelief when Flix called me and repeated the same two words Id been reading over and over. Its Andrew.

Eric Thibault