Gang leader Gregory Woolley was shot and killed Friday morning in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in front of his wife and their newborn child.
What there is to know
Gang leader Gregory Woolley was shot and killed in the parking lot of a commercial street in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Friday morning.
According to our information, he died in front of his partner and their child, a newborn just 3 days old.
The murder of the influential kingpin occurs in a sensitive period within organized crime where several murders and attempted murders have followed one another.
Gregory Woolley died from his injuries, according to our information.
He was shot dead around 10:30 a.m. while he was near his white Lamborghini SUV in a parking lot located near the CLSC de la Vallée-des-Forts, on Boulevard du Séminaire Nord in Saint-Jean-sur- Richelieu. A huge perimeter was established, around which curious people gathered in the afternoon.
About seven detonations were heard in the morning, said a woman who preferred not to give her name. At the passage of The Presstwo young girls were still waiting for the perimeter to be lifted so they could retrieve their vehicle.
According to our information, Gregory Woolley was with his partner and their child, an infant barely 3 days old, when he was shot.
The investigation, which was opened by the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu police, was transferred to the crimes against the person division of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ).
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Gregory Woolley, during his arrest in 2015
A burned black Range Rover SUV was discovered around 11:30 a.m. at the corner of Sébastopol and Favard streets in the Pointe-Saint-Charles district, in the southwest of Montreal. It is not excluded that this discovery could have a link to Woolley’s murder, according to sources.
A large perimeter was still in place Friday evening around the charred carcass of the vehicle. Neighbors who preferred to remain anonymous explained that they heard a loud noise before seeing the car on fire at the time of the incident. The police officers reportedly looked at the security camera images of some of them.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The residence of Gregory Woolley, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, was under surveillance by the police Friday afternoon.
In Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the sumptuous residence on rue des Trembles where the boss lived was monitored by the police on Friday afternoon. The deceased’s neighbors did not seem surprised by the murder that occurred earlier in the day. “There had already been several incidents. Gunshots, police officers around, a fire,” explained one of his neighbors.
Gregory Woolley’s house in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was indeed the target of a Molotov cocktail in August 2022.
The previous May, shots had been fired at the neighboring house, but Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu police investigators believe that the suspect had gone to the wrong house and that it was Woolley’s that would have should have been targeted.
According to our sources, Woolley had already been informed by the police that his life was threatened.
A major player
Since his parole in 2020, Gregory Woolley, 51, formerly very close to the Hells Angels, was now considered by the police as an associate of the Sicilian clan of the Montreal mafia.
In October 2018, he pleaded guilty to charges of gangsterism, conspiracy and drug trafficking filed in the wake of Operation Magot-Mastiff, carried out in November 2015, and he was sentenced to eight years.
Before his arrest at the end of the Magot-Mastiff investigation, Gregory Woolley was considered by the police as one of the leaders of a mafia-biker-gang alliance which had led Montreal organized crime since the natural death of godfather Vito Rizzuto in December 2013.
It took up a lot of space in the metropolis between 2012 and 2015, while most of the Hells Angels arrested after Operation SharQc in 2009 were still detained or had to respect conditions.
Gregory Woolley was notably at the origin of a merger of major street gangs in the metropolis.
A trusted man of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto, he also took advantage of this period to get closer to Stefano Sollecito, whom the police considered to be the leader of the Montreal mafia in the fall of 2015.
“He watches my back, I watch his back,” Sollecito said of Woolley in a conversation captured by investigators in the office of former criminal lawyer Loris Cavaliere during the Magot-Mastiff investigation.
“A turning point for the future of Montreal organized crime”
According to our information, the Sicilian clan had given Woolley part of the profits from illegal sports betting and loans from the mafia, commonly called the “Book” in the community.
More recently, Gregory Woolley had become close to members of the South section of the Hells Angels and had been observed by the police during one of their events.
During his last incarceration, Woolley was also accused of plotting, with the late Hells Angels warlord Maurice Boucher, the murder of kingpin Raynald Desjardins, but the prosecution later dropped the charge.
“The murder of Gregory Woolley is a major symbol. We have just eliminated the armed wing of the organization which had access to its services. This is a turning point for the future of Montreal organized crime. Woolley was a very powerful individual who had access to many people and was well respected by some organized crime organizations. He was, I believe, on the list of the ten most important individuals in Montreal organized crime,” an observer who knows Montreal organized crime very well told us, on condition of anonymity.
A bloody year
Montreal organized crime has been shaken by significant events in recent months.
Leonardo Rizzuto, son of former mafia godfather Vito Rizzuto, was the victim of an attempted murder in mid-March in Laval.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Leonardo Rizzuto
The following May, Claudia Iacono, spouse of an individual linked to the mafia, Anthony Gallo, was killed, but police believe it was her husband who was targeted.
On June 5, Francesco Del Balso, former lieutenant of the Rizzuto clan who joined the Hells Angels of Montreal, was assassinated, probably in retaliation for the attack against Leonardo Rizzuto.
According to our information, the alliance between the Sicilian mafia clan and the bikers, which existed for around ten years in Montreal, has now evaporated.
The groups would do their business separately, each on their own, waiting to see what happens at the end of a major investigation that the Montreal City Police Service and the SQ began last year around revelations from a former organized crime hitman turned collaborator, Frédérick Silva.
This investigation could help elucidate dozens of murders and attempted murders committed within Montreal organized crime for several years.
With the collaboration of Hugo Joncas, Mayssa Ferah and Vincent Larin, The Press
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.
Who is Gregory Woolley?
- Former member of Master B, one of the first street gangs in Montreal North
- Former founding member of the Syndicates, a defunct biker-linked street gang
- Very close to Maurice Boucher, he is the only Black to have climbed so high in the hierarchy of bikers in Quebec.
- Ex-member of the Rockers, the late Hells Angels school club
- In 2004, he was acquitted of the murder of a Rock Machine sympathizer killed in 1996, during the biker war.
- Sentenced in 2005 to 13 years for conspiracy to murder, gangsterism and drug trafficking following his arrest in Operation Spring 2001
- Arrested again in 2009 for drug trafficking while detained (Axe project). He will be sentenced to four years.
- Released unconditionally in 2011. A year later, he was seen in the company of former criminal lawyer Loris Cavaliere, in the latter’s Ferrari, going to the funeral home where the remains of Hells Angels Gaétan Comeau were on display. This was one of the starting points of the Magot-Mastiff investigation.