Montreal police chief urges parents to watch for signs as gangs enlist more teens

Montreal police Chief Fady Dagher made a plea Thursday to parents of youth being recruited by criminal gangs: if officers knock on their door with information that their children are headed for trouble, please hear them out.

Dagher said gangs are increasingly preying on children as young as 12.

"We can save them, we can stop them from going down this criminal path," he told a news conference in Montreal. "But there are parents who don't believe us — they don't believe they have a problem at home."

He also had a message for merchants being extorted with young people often enlisted to torch or shoot up businesses that don't go along with demands. Dagher urged business owners to contact police "at the beginning, not at the end."

Cmdr. Francis Renaud, head of the force's organized crime unit, said there were between 30 and 40 reported extortion cases across Montreal this summer. The hotspot is mainly the city's downtown, he said.

Extortion isn't a new phenomenon, and the current situation involves both old players and new ones trying to make inroads. Renaud noted that all types of businesses are being targeted, including some that have clear organized crime ties.

What has changed over the years, Renaud said, is that the pyramid structure that long prevailed in Montreal organized crime for decades has collapsed over the past 10 to 15 years. It has given way to a less hierarchical, cell-type structure that is more volatile.

Montreal police have made a spate of arrests of younger and younger suspects for gang-related activity.

On Wednesday, they announced they had arrested seven teens between the ages of 14 and 17 last week who allegedly belonged to a gang based in the city's St-Léonard borough. They are suspected in numerous violent crimes including robbery, firearms offences, arson and extortion.

Police also arrested a 15-year-old in connection with a weekend arson attempt, and this week, three people, including one minor, were arrested in connection with shooting up a building in Old Montreal. Nobody was injured in the shooting. The targeted building is owned by Montreal businessman Emile Benamor, who also owns two Old Montreal buildings that were hit by suspicious fires — one last week and the other in March 2023. A total of nine people died in the two fires.

There was also the case of a 14-year-old from Montreal who died in the Beauce region after reportedly being sent to attack a bunker allegedly belonging to a Hells Angels puppet gang in Frampton, Que.

"I think it's awful. I think it's disgusting to see adults using young kids to do the dirty things they can't do because they don't want to take the risk," Dagher said.

Separately, Dagher said he was confident there would be an arrest in the Old Montreal fire last Friday that claimed the lives of a mother and daughter from France. Léonor Geraudie, 43, and seven-year-old Vérane Reynaud Geraudie, were identified by authorities. But police declined to say whether the case has any ties to the rash of extortion-related attacks.

In Quebec City, the Parti Québécois is calling for legislative hearings to gather testimony from parents, police and community groups on the rising number of youth being used as "cannon fodder" by organized crime.

During an exchange at the national assembly, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon mentioned the fears in Montreal over violent street gangs enlisting youth to commit car theft, fraud and murder. In response, Quebec Premier François Legault called the recruitment of teenagers into organized crime appalling and unacceptable.

At an earlier news conference, St-Pierre Plamondon, who represents a Montreal riding, framed it as a serious societal issue. "Our young people, particularly in the Montreal region, are literally being used as cannon fodder in a war between criminal groups," St-Pierre Plamondon said. "The question is being asked … have we lost control over street gangs?"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.