Most Wanted - The Hunt for All Boivin | 12
29:49 Share

Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

Coming to ABC and Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church. And then she got diagnosed with cancer. A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved. We thought she was God's gift, but she was a liar. Why would somebody fake cancer? From the number one smash hit pod.

It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down. You're not going to believe this. Scamanda. New episodes Thursday nights on ABC and stream on Hulu. Hey, it's Nancy Hixt, reporter and host of Crime Beat. I hope you're enjoying Crime Beat Most Wanted. I'm working on so many intriguing stories, including a case that was a true whodunit that took place in the popular resort town of Banff.

I'll share how the case went cold despite tireless efforts to track the killer. This story, and so many others, will be available starting mid-February of 2025. I hope you'll join me then for a brand new season of Crime Beat. A listener's note. The following episode contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature, and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

A conflict between criminal organizations erupts in eastern Québec. Police documents are clearly saying that Al Boivin was seen by Bernard Plourde.

as a good candidate to become a full-patch Hells Angels. The war over drug territory becomes violent and involves kidnapping and torture. I was shocked. I've never seen that in Quebec. We've seen terrible things. We've heard terrible things.

But now we see terrible things. That's a major difference for me. I'm Tracy Tong, and this is Crime Beat Most Wanted, a podcast that takes you inside open investigations of some of the most serious crimes in Canada in hopes your tips lead police to justice.

Today, I'm joined by Mike Armstrong to share the story of an alleged gang leader. He is accused of numerous drug-related offenses, including trafficking, and police say he has been evading arrest since February of 2023. This is The Hunt for Al Boivin.

Even in the criminal underworld, there are rules. It's not on any map, but the province of Quebec is divided into territories. Different gang leaders control different regions. To sell drugs just about anywhere, dealers are supposed to give a cut to whoever controls that region. Basically, a 10% tax. Failure to pay tends to mean conflict.

Félix Seguet is one of Quebec's top crime reporters. A large percentage of the murders that occurred in Montreal, in the surroundings, in all the province, are somehow related to the payment or the absence of payment of this tax.

The rules over taxing and drugs apply even here. The Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region is about 350 kilometers northeast of Montreal. It is a picturesque landscape carved by glaciers dotted with villages and towns and the city of Saguenay. Population 145,000. It is remote but still plagued by a drug problem.

One, according to police, led by a local man, Al Boivin. All types of drugs. His network distributed them. He was the head here in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. His network is the biggest in the region.

Now, police allege Boivin's group is supposed to pay taxes to the Hells Angels, and in fact, specifically to his former boss. The territory is controlled by a full-patch member of the Hells,

Bernard Plourde. He controls the territory here. He was out on probation earlier this year, but after breaching some of his conditions, was locked up again. But even from behind bars, his gang is supposed to get its tax. It is instead, police say, at war with one of his former tax collectors, Al Boivin. And it has been brutal.

We're living in a different world today.

Pietro Poletti is one of those retired police officers you think has seen it all. But what's going on now is part of a movement that has even him nervous. Independent drug dealers using arson, beatings, kidnappings, and torture, even cutting off fingers and toes to terrorize, and to add insult to injury, filming the torture sessions, and sending the videos to their enemies.

- It's gonna get worse. Hopefully I'm wrong, but there's no signs of it getting better. - The man police allege is in the middle of the criminal chaos is Al Boivin. He is 33 years old, but his entire adult life he's been in and out of jail. There were opportunities to turn things around, but they never took. A man who, according to police, leads a network of drug dealers from the shadows.

now has his face on billboards and, according to police, is on the run. Police want people in the Saguenay region to know what Albuve looks like and to know there's a reward for his capture, up to $100,000.

It's a priority for the regional mixed squad and for other police forces because we want to stop the violence. We think that by putting Al Boivin in prison so he can go to trial, we think it'll calm things down.

The gang police say is led by Canada's most wanted suspect, focuses on cocaine, but has its hands in many other illegal activities as well. Police say Boivin's network deals everything from cannabis to amphetamines and crystal meth, and also works in loan sharking and prostitution.

But it is the level of violence allegedly from Boivin's gang and his bad blood with bikers that has many remembering a painful period in the province. Quebec's biker war between the Hells Angels and rival Rock Machine Gang ran from 1994 to 2002. More than 160 people were killed, including innocent civilians caught in the middle.

A father who coached his son's hockey shot gassing up his car, mistaken for a biker. A waitress in a diner held up by a biker during an attack as a human shield who took four bullets. And an 11-year-old boy playing in the street, killed by a bomb planted under a biker's vehicle. That entire eight-year conflict started as a fight over the control of territories and taxation.

Decades later, police want to stop the battle between independent gangs and the Hells Angels, for it too spirals out of control. I think that is the most significant security crisis that we have lived since the Biker Wars. Now, the Hells Angels are in fact embroiled in two turf wars simultaneously. While police say Boivin's gang fights for independence in the Saguenay region,

Another group is waging a parallel war in and around Quebec City. The Blood Family Mafia is a street gang, according to police, led by another man on the run, Dave "Pic" Zurmel. His Facebook profile may say he studied at Harvard. He did not. Zurmel instead, according to police, leads a network of dealers and is refusing to give the Hells Angels a cut.

To force his point, police say Turmel's men have resorted to a level of violence inspired by Mexican drug cartels. Well, it's shocking for police officers. The criminal world means violence, inevitably. There was a certain level of violence within their group which they themselves managed. But now, when it's reached the point where there are attempted murders, mutilations, kidnappings,

It takes the game up a notch, and that's why there's a lot of police pressure right now. How Al Boivin and Dave Turmel may be related is unclear. According to police, they lead gangs in different parts of the province. But observers say they have been in contact with each other and appear to share a common enemy. Criminologist Maria Morani reports.

All of those guys, they came together because they were generally fed up with the Hells Angels. It's like if I tell you the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They're strategic calculations. How can I make money without getting a bullet in the head? I need to have friends.

Police tried to take down Boivin in February of 2023. There were several raids targeting his alleged gang in Quebec and in Abbotsford, British Columbia. A multi-force effort, Operation Radon. Twelve people were targeted with arrest warrants. Within hours, police had 11 of them behind bars. Boivin, alleged to be the leader of the gang, wasn't caught.

Making big financial decisions is never easy. Whether you're buying a home, renewing your insurance or collecting your pension, there are so many things you need to think about. Having confidence in the financial services professionals and institutions you're working with is critical.

and thanks to BC Financial Services Authority, you can. As the regulator of BC's financial services sector, BCFSA is here to help protect some of your biggest financial investments and to make sure these transactions are stable so you don't have to worry. Visit bcfsa.ca and feel confident about your financial decisions. After all, BCFSA is in your corner financially.

Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go. So whether you're playing a game at home Yes, cool! or attending one live Cool! you can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at cox.com slash internet. Cox Internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox Mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to age 20-23. Results may vary, not an endorsement. Other restrictions apply.

If you're fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast, Serial Killers, where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday.

It is the stuff of nightmares. Three men grabbed off the streets of Quebec City, bound and beaten, and taken to a remote home in the countryside, the sort of place no one would hear their screams. In February, in the village of Saint-Malachy, members of the independent gang, the Blood Family Mafia, spent days inflicting pain on their enemies. They also filmed and shared parts of it.

Documenting the violence is a risk, but there is also a strategy behind it.

They want to show their strength with it. It lets them scare people. Instead of my enemy going after me, he's so scared that he won't even do battle. A war not fought is a war you've won. Now, one of the victims was able to get free, kill the person watching them and call police, ending days of pain. The police document shows us that they were like

torture so many times. When we talk about torture, what are we talking about? We're talking about drills, we're talking about knives, cheap rock, screws. They're putting screws into people's feet. Exactly. And when they remove it, they say it hurts like crazy.

Just days later, another abduction, this time in Saguenay, and this time, police believe, ordered by Al Boivin. Police sources say the victim had ties to Boivin, but appears to have had a falling out. He was kidnapped, tortured, and about 24 hours later, dropped off on the streets of Montreal, hundreds of kilometers from where he'd been grabbed. The 28-year-old was found badly bruised, and also with a finger and a toe cut off.

This guy was really close to Al Bouhamein. He didn't cooperate with police afterwards. And till this day, he's not cooperating at all. Well, Bouhamein grew up in a middle-class community in the north end of Segne, a peaceful neighborhood surrounded by nature.

Boivin was raised by this man. His father, Marco Boivin, ran a bike shop for a time and was also affiliated with the Hells Angels. He too was in and out of jail, serving several sentences for drug trafficking. Marco Boivin died in 2012 in what the family called at the time an accident.

Retired Saguenay police officer Dominic Corneau insists the death was suspicious. He died at the top of a mountain in the middle of winter. Something happened because it's not normal to be there at that time of the year.

Alboivin had run-ins with police early. He and three accomplices lured a man to a room, tied him to a chair, and beat him for hours. Alboivin pleaded guilty to kidnapping and assault.

Crime scene video taken by police after an event in 2018 that would again land Boivin in prison. It was an altercation with a woman in his home. She would tell police he beat her, strangled her, threw her around, pepper sprayed her, and sexually assaulted her.

He would plead guilty to assault causing bodily harm. The judge in the case described Boivin as having two personalities: one calm, polite, and cooperative when sober, the other when he's not sober, explosive and out of control. At the time, in court documents, the judge says Boivin made a living as a loan shark. He lent people money from $500 to $10,000 at an interest rate of 50%.

At that time, Boivin was serving, according to police, as a sort of right-hand man to influential Hells Angel Bernard Plourde, the man who controlled drug trafficking in the region. Police documents are clearly saying that Al Boivin was seen by Bernard Plourde.

Now, at some point, Seguin says something happened, a trigger that ruptured the relationship. Boivin would go from trusted soldier for the Hells Angels to an enemy, according to police documents.

He was the guy who was charged to collect the tax. So we knew exactly how it goes, knew exactly the rules, knew exactly who paying taxes to who. And guess what? Some of those guys have been beaten.

by Al Bovay's team. - Everything changed with the February kidnappings. There was too much media attention and police went after the independent gangs. - The suspects that we're looking for that are not in Quebec, we're working with different authorities. I'm not gonna go into too much detail.

33 people linked to the Blood Family Mafia were arrested, rounded up basically in a weekend. Four members of the gang allegedly led by Boivin were also arrested in February. Four more were picked up in June. But even on the run, police believe both Boivin and Surmel have been able to continue their wars with the Hells Angels.

So Mel is believed to be in Europe, possibly moving between Portugal and Spain, but still directing Henchmen.

Boivin is believed to be in Canada, possibly moving between Quebec and Ontario. There have been sightings and tips to police. One, according to sources, very nearly led to Boivin's capture. It was a tip early in the summer that Boivin was in a house in Ile-Pereau, Quebec, Canada's most wanted suspect, in a bedroom community just west of the island of Montreal. They were tracking him or tried to track him and the minute they

police arrived at the house, they heard that they missed him by a few minutes. So he was already gone. So he somehow knew that police was coming. Or he just got very lucky. Or he got lucky. Or he got lucky. But the undisputed fact that he was gone before they arrived. And police missed him by that much? Eight minutes. Eight minutes. Yeah.

A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City. At approximately 9 o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper.

This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance. The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. Love and fellowship. It was probably the happiest of everybody in my life. And the lengths we'll go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

When a body is discovered 10 miles out to sea, it sparks a mind-blowing police investigation. There's a man living in this address in the name of deceased. He's one of the most wanted men in the world. This isn't really happening. Officers finding large sums of money. It's a tale of murder, skullduggery and international intrigue. So who really is he?

I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncover, available now. Hi, everyone. I'm investigative journalist and park enthusiast Delia D'Ambra. And every week on my podcast, Park Predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings. From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances,

Each Tuesday, we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen to Park Predators now wherever you listen to podcasts. Police are asking you to be on the lookout for Al Boivin. His last known residence was Saint-Lazare, Quebec, but police believe he could be in the Ottawa area. If you have any information on his whereabouts, call Crime Stoppers. Let's go back to Mike Armstrong.

The frustration had been building for years. The Hells Angels collect a 10% tax on drugs sold almost anywhere in the province of Quebec, often without any involvement. Whether it's street gangs or independent drug traffickers, they're supposed to pay a cut. The revolt, it was there. I heard it on the ground. There was a growling. They were fed up. They didn't want to work for the Hells.

Now, when criminals refuse to pay the tax, there are consequences. 33-year-old Francis "Tank" Tourgeon was shot outside his home east of Montreal in 2019 over a reported $80,000 tax debt. Since the Los Angeles are controlling almost all the drug territories in Quebec, I mean, just imagine how much they can make money just by taxing.

It's a market economy for them. Supply and demand. They want the monopoly. Somebody's infringing on their monopoly. You understand? Everybody's got their territory. Don't step on it.

Well, two independent gangs appear to be fighting back. The Blood Family Mafia, who police allege is led by Dave Pic-Tzer-Mell, and a gang out of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region that police say is led by Al Boivin, a man who is now at the top of Canada's Most Wanted list.

his face part of the Bolo program in ads, and on billboards in his hometown of Saguenay, Quebec. The reward offered for information leading to his arrest: up to $100,000.

Our message to the public is simple: please be on the lookout. In recent months, police have hit the gang hard. There have been several arrests and sizable seizures. Staying ahead of police on the run takes money, and that's what police are targeting. But they believe Boivin's alleged network is still operating, and he is still in control.

Yes, absolutely. He's probably still there today, but it's the job of police to throw a wrench into the works to get the money out. Despite the pressure and his new profile, Boivin remains at large.

But just as surprising may be that police believe he still has the ability to control his henchmen. Even if one, the boss, the chief... Worani says if a gang's boss is in prison or in exile or on the moon, if he's not dead, he's still active. In the meantime, he just has to look over his shoulder all the time, every day.

Police believe that all it takes is one tip to bring him in. Alboivin is described as 6 feet tall or 183 centimeters. He has brown hair, brown eyes, and weighs around 240 pounds or 110 kilograms. He is wanted for numerous drug-related offenses and is suspected of being involved in several crimes that are still being investigated.

If you have any information, Crime Stoppers is waiting for your anonymous call at 1-800-222-TIPS or submit a tip online. We'll include this information in our show notes. You can also watch our docuseries, Crime Beat Most Wanted, on YouTube, where you can see the suspects still at large. Home Network is here. I love it. Discover the best shows and your favorite trusted experts all under one roof. My YouTube!

Every Thursday, watch heartwarming programs like an all-new Extreme Makeover Home Edition at 8. We are so lucky to be a part of this. And Honest Renovations, starring Jessica Alba and Lizzie Mathis at 9. Changing these homes, we can change families. There's no place like it. Home Network, stream on STAT TV. Thank you for listening. Crime Beat Most Wanted is hosted by me, Tracy Tong. Reporting in this episode is by Mike Armstrong.

adapted to podcast by our senior producer, Dila Velazquez, with help from associate producer, Elizabeth Sargent, audio and sound design by Rob Johnson. We'd love to have you tell a friend about this podcast, and please consider rating and reviewing Crime Beat Most Wanted on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening, and please join me next time on Crime Beat Most Wanted.