Organised crime: Kingpin Gregory Woolley predicted 'carnage' after failing to reason with one of the gangs worrying police
Influential criminal called one of the leaders of Arab Power "sick"
This guy is out of control and completely sick! He's going to cause carnage..."
It was none other than Gregory Woolley who made this alarming observation, shortly before his assassination, while speaking about the leader of one of the emerging gangs that greatly concerns the police, the Arab Power, our Investigation Bureau has learned.
Yet Woolley, who was described as the "godfather of gangs" in the underworld, had seen more.
Himself accused of 11 murders committed during the biker war in the 90s, but of which he was never found guilty, the former henchman of the Hells Angels was notoriously known as one of the most powerful and dangerous actors in Quebec organized crime.
Woolley nevertheless made this disturbing comment a little over a year ago, in front of witnesses, after having tried in vain, in his role as mediator of conflicts on the criminal scene, to curb the ardor of Arab Power and one of its alleged leaders, Youness Aithaqi, nicknamed "Frérot."
The most feared gangster of his generation, close to the Hells and the Rizzuto clan, thus raised the white flag, feeling incapable of reasoning with one of these new gangs of violent traffickers who have been shaking up the established order in this milieu for several decades.
Murder Contracts
Part of Woolley's prediction came true on November 17.
He was riddled with bullets in front of his partner and their baby, barely four days old, in the parking lot of the CLSC in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
According to our sources, the police are now considering the hypothesis that Arab Power could have had Woolley killed.
The shooter identified as a suspect is believed to be a member of this gang. However, no charges have been filed in this case.
And in a sign that loyalty no longer seems to be worth much in this environment, the suspected shooter is also suspected of having already committed an attempted murder against one of Woolley's enemies a few years ago, according to our information.
In addition, the authorities suspect Arab Power of being one of the gangs that put a price on the head of the boss Jean-Philippe Célestin, a close associate of the Hells and seen as Woolley's "heir apparent" in organized crime.
Last spring, our Investigation Bureau revealed that Célestin, 43, was the subject of a murder contract with a reward of at least $50,000.
His younger brother, Brandon Jean Célestin, was shot dead as he left a family party in La Petite-Patrie on February 17. Police are considering mistaken identity, believing the killer targeted the wrong person.
Investigations into the crimes against the Celestin brothers have not yet led to any arrests. However, Sylvain Kabbouchi, considered another leader of Arab Power, is awaiting trial for the murder of Nitchell Lapaix, who was Celestin’s right-hand man when he was killed in 2021.
An “aura” around Frérot
Absent from the police radar three years ago, the Arab Power is now a growing gang whose members have their eyes set on controlling the drug market in Montreal and Laval.
Despite the maximum security rating of this federal institution, Brother would have no trouble having a cell phone on hand to allow him to conduct his illicit business.
"He's the kind of guy who comes in and the others move aside to make room for him. He has an aura around him in the criminal world," explained a source from our Bureau of Investigation to describe the obvious influence that Aithaqi exerts in the prison environment.
Our source describes the 35-year-old gangster as an "old school" bandit.
"He's a guy who goes about his business. He's very discreet. He doesn't ask for anything and almost never speaks. He doesn't seek confrontation."
His gang also allegedly made extortion one of its specialties, demanding sums of up to several hundred thousand dollars from several restaurant and bar owners, supposedly to guarantee the security of their establishments.
For decades, the prerogative of this illegal practice was attributed to the Italian mafia, which named it "pizzo."
They also saw him enter an apartment on Pierrefonds Boulevard and talk with another gangster well known to law enforcement.
It was Marckens Vilme, then considered "the leader of the blue allegiance gangs in the west of Montreal" in addition to being "associated in business with subjects of organized crime [from] the Near or Middle East", according to police documents consulted by our Investigation Bureau.
Cyanide attack
Three years later, Vilme, whose nickname is "Big M," was also caught for murder. But in his case, the victim was a regular member of the Hells Angels in Ontario, Michael Deabaitua-Schulde.
Fellow inmates tried to poison him with cyanide, according to our information, the same fate that the Montreal mafia reserved for the boss Giuseppe "Ponytail" De Vito, who died in the Donnacona penitentiary in 2013.
But Vilme did not ingest the poison, which was seized by prison staff.
No successor
Since the murder of Gregory Woolley, no one in the upper echelons of organised crime seems able to play the role of arbitrator or mediator that he once had with the gangs.
Moreover, in the months before his death, Woolley had expressed a willingness to relinquish this responsibility, given the highly unstable and volatile climate in this environment.
It is the kind of role that the late mafia boss Vito Rizzuto had long fulfilled, before being taken by illness in December 2013, because of the moral authority he exercised in the underworld.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2...r-lun-des-gangs-qui-inquietent-la-police
