shown up for the meeting driving a car registered in the name of the mother of Luc (Bordel) Bordeleau, who was a member of the Rockers at the time.
Maurice (Mom) Boucher (left) and Luc (Bordel) Bordeleau
Just days prior to this meeting, the
Fortune Endeavor
had penetrated Canadian waters on its return from Jamaica but had run into trouble. It reported problems to the authorities at the Halifax port. Worried that they would go through an official inspection, those on board dumped 750 kilograms of cocaine packed into plastic pipes weighed down with lead and chains. While dumping the cocaine overboard appeared to be part of the Hells Angelsâ ultimate plan, they had apparently planned to do it in shallower waters. On August 17, the same day Boucher held a meeting with Desjardins, Imbeault set off from Shippagan, New Brunswick, in a pleasure boat. He planned to locate the cocaine using sonar. On board with him was Bordeleau, who besides being a founding member of the Rockers and a close friend of Boucher, was also a professionally trained scuba diver. After eightdays of diving attempts in the Gulf of the Saint Lawrence, the men were unable to find the cocaine and they quit. Whenever Bordeleau and the others would came back to shore without their sunken illicit treasure they were closely followed by the RCMP. Surveillance teams noticed that Bordeleau did little to hide the fact that he was always armed. To the police, it appeared Boucher had personally recruited Bordeleau for the cocaine recovery operation. The subject would come up later at Bordeleauâs parole board hearings while he was serving five years for his failed scuba diving expeditions. Despite having apparently little to do with the larger smuggling plan, Bordeleau was charged, shortly after giving up the search for the cocaine, along with the other major players, like Imbeault and Desjardins. The cocaine was located about a year later by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Boucher wasnât even arrested. His telephone conversations with Desjardins provided little of actual interest to investigators. But by now, it was clear he had become a major player in Quebecâs lucrative illicit drug scene. It had been a long and messy road.
Maurice (Mom) Boucher â The Man Himself
Boucher was born on June 21, 1953, in Causapscal, a village in the Gaspé peninsula located where the Matapedia and Causapscal rivers meet. The villageâs name is a Miâkmaq word meaning âpebbly point.â
When he was two years old, his family moved from the peace of the remote village to one of Montrealâs rougher neighborhoods, where Boucherâs father worked in construction as an iron worker. His mother stayed home to look after Boucher and his seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters. The details of his early life are contained in a presentencing report filed when Boucher was 21 and, by then, a petty criminal with a serious drug problem, by his own admission. The report was filed to a judge in February 1975 by criminologist Guy Pellerin who interviewedBoucher, his mother, a friend and an investigator with the Montreal police.
At the time of Pellerinâs assessment, Boucher was charged with breaking and entering. He had been nabbed in connection with three different break-ins during the fall of 1974. The first arrest came on November 5, just after midnight. Boucher smashed the front door window of a neighborhood grocery store in Hochelaga Maisonneuve, the low-income Montreal district where he had grown up. He grabbed 23 cartons of cigarettes and headed out. But his actions had set off an alarm heard by two cops in a nearby patrol car. When they pulled up to the front of the store, the officers saw Boucher standing in front of it. A green plastic bag filled with cigarette cartons lay at his feet.
Boucher was charged with breaking and entering and was released on a promise heâd stop breaking the law long enough to have his case heard. But a little
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