Maurice Boucher

Maurice Boucher (21 June 1953 – 10 July 2022) was a Canadian gangster, convicted murderer, reputed drug trafficker, and outlaw biker—once president of the Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the construction industry in Quebec was dominated by the Mafia-linked union boss André "Dédé" Desjardins, known as le roi de la construction ("the king of construction"), who ran the Conseil des métiers de la construction union quite brutally.

The world that Boucher grew up in was a world where violence was commonplace and where corruption was accepted as normal.

Boucher's school report cards describe him as an indifferent student and he dropped out of school in grade 9 to work odd jobs.

One of Boucher's most consistent enemies, Commander André Bouchard of the Montreal police, who first encountered Boucher in the 1970s, described Boucher during his time in the SS: "He was muscle. He was a crazy fucker. They'd send him out to beat up some guy. He was stoned half the time".

In April 1973, the 19-year-old Boucher committed his first known crime, when he stole $200 from a dépanneur.

Boucher told Pellerin that he would have liked to have followed his father into the construction trade, but the economic recession caused by the Arab oil shock of 1973–74 had made work very hard to find.

Pellerin also described Boucher as lacking emotional empathy as a result of his abusive childhood, saying he was a very cold-hearted individual who regarded violence as acceptable behaviour.

In July 1974, Boucher got a certificate allowing him to work in the construction industry, but he only lasted a week before being fired due to problems caused by his heavy drinking and drug use.

Unhappy with his income and desperate to support his drug habit, he turned to crime.

He was arrested for three break and enters in the fall of 1974 and served nearly six months in detention.

The first known crime committed by Boucher as an adult was on the night of 5 November 1974, when he broke into a grocery store in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district and attempted to steal 23 cartons of cigarettes but was caught by police upon exiting the store in possession of the cartons.

It was during this time that Boucher's girlfriend, Diane Leblanc, was pregnant.

By his own admission, Boucher was addicted to alcohol and marijuana and he often used cocaine, amphetamines, LSD, and heroin, though he stated to a police psychologist, Martin Pellerin, in February 1975 that he stopped using hard drugs in September 1974.

In February 1975, Boucher was interviewed by Pellerin who described him as an ambitious man who wanted to get rich without working.

On 5 November 1975, Boucher committed an armed robbery but was caught and sentenced to 40 months in prison.

Boucher went into a butcher's shop armed with a rifle and stole $138.38, but because he used a gun with the robbery, the court imposed a stiff sentence.

In December 1978, Boucher and his younger brother, Christian, were arrested for a series of home invasions, and for beating up the owner of one of the homes they had robbed.

One of the members of the SS was one Normand "Biff" Hamel, who was to follow Boucher into the Hells Angels; it was Hamel, whose first conviction for drug dealing was in 1978, who introduced the SS gang to the drug trade.

Hamel argued that this was a more profitable form of activity than beating up non-white immigrants.

Hamel argued that however enjoyable it might be to beat up nonwhite immigrants, this did not make the SS biker gang any money.

In July 1979, Boucher got a job working at a plastic factory in Montreal, which he held for four years, which was the longest period of legitimate employment in his entire life.

In December 1981, Boucher was again charged with a home invasion, but the charges were dropped when the victim refused to testify against him in court.

Around 1982, Boucher was a member of a white supremacist motorcycle gang named the SS who were based in Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the eastern tip of the Island of Montreal.

The SS were a group of men of working-class background who were strongly opposed to non-white immigration and initially their activities were limited to beating up non-white immigrants in order to make them go back to their countries of origin.

A fellow member of the SS was Salvatore Cazzetta; the two became friends.

As leaders of the gang, they became candidates to join the Hells Angels when the Angels decided to expand its operations into the rest of Canada.

Boucher led Montreal's Hells Angels against the rival Rock Machine biker gang during the Quebec Biker War (Guerre des motards au Québec) of 1994 through 2002 in Quebec, Canada.

Right up until his murder in 2000, Hamel was described as Boucher's principal business partner.

It was during his time in the SS that Boucher, until then an undistinguished petty criminal, first showed the charisma and ability to lead that later marked his time in the Hells Angels.

In 2002, Boucher was convicted of ordering the murders of two Quebec prison officers in an effort to destabilize the Quebec Justice system.

He was sent to serve three life sentences at Canada's only supermax prison, in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.

While imprisoned there, Boucher survived several assassination attempts motivated by his infamy, and was placed in a special unit of the prison to isolate him.

Authorities transferred him in June 2022 to the nearby Archambault Institution under conditions of secrecy so he could receive palliative care following the metastasis of his throat cancer.

He died 10 July 2022.

Boucher had two children, Alexandra Mongeau and Francis Boucher, who have also been involved in organized crime.

Born in Causapscal, Quebec, Canada, Boucher was raised in poverty in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough of inner-city Montreal, where his family moved when he was two years old.

Boucher had seven siblings; his father worked as a construction worker while his mother stayed at home to raise their eight children.

Boucher's father was an alcoholic who frequently beat his wife and children, and his mother was described as the main source of love during his childhood.

Boucher's father was described as "a severe man who tolerated no lip from his children" and imposed an "iron discipline" on his children.