Frank Ryan (gangster)
Frank Ryan | |
---|---|
Born | Frank Peter Ryan Jr. 10 June 1942 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Died | 13 November 1984 Montreal, Quebec, Canada | (aged 42)
Other names | "Dunie" |
Occupation | Gangster |
Years active | 1956–1984 |
Known for | Leader of the West End Gang |
Successor | Allan Ross |
Allegiance | West End Gang |
Conviction(s) | Armed robbery (1962) Manslaughter (1965) Armed robbery (1966) |
Criminal penalty | 15 years' imprisonment (1966) |
Frank Peter "Dunie" Ryan Jr. (10 June 1942 – 13 November 1984) was a Canadian gangster and the leader of the West End Gang, a Montreal-based criminal organization.
Criminal career
Hoodlum
Ryan was born of
Ryan continued his crime spree throughout the 1960s, being convicted of robbery with violence and of burglary.
In 1966, he was convicted of a bank robbery in Boston for which he served 6 years of a 15-year sentence in an American prison.[2] Ryan and four other men robbed the Essex County Bank and Trust on 24 August 1966, but were arrested by the Boston police shortly afterwards.[1] After his parole in December 1972, Ryan joined what was then called the Irish Gang to help him continue his criminal enterprises, which now included loansharking as well as robberies.[2] In 1973, he married Evelyn Lemieux from the Gaspé.[2] Ryan had two children by his wife, Trica and Troy.[5] Ryan had an easy-going personality, which made him popular, and he soon became the leader of the West End Gang.[6] Starting in 1973, Ryan and the West End Gang went on a rampage of robbing jewelry stores and armoured cars for banks.[1] Ryan's favorite place was Smitty's, a run-down bar on rue Sherbrooke, where he played pool, drank and planned robberies with his Irish-Canadian and French-Canadian associates.[6]
The West End Gang did have not the same rigid hierarchical structure of the
The most successful robbery committed by the West End Gang under Ryan's leadership was the theft of $2,275,884 in cash together with golden Olympic coins worth $5,000 dollars from a Brinks armored car on 30 March 1976.[8] The Montreal newspapers called the Brinks robbery of 30 March 1976-which was the largest robbery ever committed in Montreal-the "crime of the century".[9] On 14 May 1976, one of the West End Gang members involved in the Brinks robbery, John Slawvey, was killed in a shoot-out with the police with detective André Savard killing Slawvey.[10] Ryan was enraged by Slawvey's killing, which he regarded as a cold-blooded execution by the police as he insisted that Slawvey was unarmed and was in the process of surrendering when Savard shot him.[11] Ryan placed a $50,000 contract on Savard's life, which was unprecedented act as never before had a gangster in Montreal placed a contract on the life of a policeman.[11] Savard was forced to living in hiding for some time afterwards.[11] Ultimately no hitman proved willing to take up the contract out of the fear of the police reaction to the killing of a policeman, and Savard came out of hiding.
The "King of Coke"
After his initial forays in the drug market, Ryan realized that this was a market that could be expanded.[2] He soon built a drug network that spread throughout Quebec, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. The West End Gang, as the Irish Gang had been renamed sometime in the late 1970s, took control of the Port of Montreal, which allowed them to smuggle in drugs on a scale that other gangs could not.[12] Through his connections with the Irish Mob of Boston, Ryan started to import cocaine from Colombia and heroin from the "Golden Crescent" nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.[13] Ryan's point-man for the Port of Montreal was Gerald Matticks and his brothers.[14] Ryan was content to be a wholesaler, who sold drugs to the Mafia and the outlaw biker clubs who in turn sold drugs to the street gangs.[4] He also began to engage in fund-raising and gun-running for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), both sending and receiving guns from Northern Ireland.[14] Proud of his Irish heritage, Ryan wore a golden Claddagh ring on his third finger.[14] Ryan was rumored to be worth $20 million, which was possibly an exaggeration, through he was clearly wealthy.[4] Ryan's prize possession was his 36-foot yacht that he sailed on the St. Lawrence River.[15]
By the late 1970s, Ryan developed relationships with other criminal organizations in Montreal, including the
In November 1979, Ryan was subpoenaed to testify at la Commission d'Enuête sur le Crime Organisé who wanted to know why Ryan-who was officially unemployed as he never had a legitimate job once in his life-could afford the mortgage on his house.[6] Ryan testified that during his time in Boston in the 1960s that he had stolen some $100, 000 U.S. dollars in various bank robberies, which he had hidden somewhere, which was the source of his income.[6] Through his claim was not believed, it was not possible for the commissioners to disprove his claim.[6] Despite not having a job, Ryan was able to afford the services of Sidney Leithman who was regarded as one of Montreal's best lawyers and was the preferred defense counsel for gangsters.[18] Leithman successfully defended Ryan several times, and was rewarded with a golden Claddagh ring by Ryan.[18] By 1980, Ryan's base of operations was the bar of the Cavalier Motel on rue St. Jacques, where a collection of criminals would go to meet him at what was known as "the zoo".[19]
When another crime figure, Patrick "Hughie" McGurnaghan, cheated Ryan in a drug deal and carried a $100,000 debt, Ryan contacted the Hells Angels' North chapter for assistance. Hells Angels member Trudeau was dispatched to kill McGurnaghan.[4] On 27 October 1981, Trudeau planted a car bomb on McGurnaghan's Mercedes-Benz, killing him and seriously injuring a male passenger.[20] According to police documents, it was believed that Ryan was worth up to $50 million.[16] Ryan was said to have a briefcase full of $500,000 that he kept on his person.[16]
Ryan refused advice to retire as he stated: "If your tap was flowing $100 bills, would you turn it off? I've got three hundred guys working for me. What are they gonna do?"[4] By 1982, Ryan was known within the Montreal underworld as the "King of Coke".[14] Ryan was a popular gang boss, who was well liked for his generosity towards his men with one of his followers, John Philips calling him a "honorable thief".[19] Philips recalled that Ryan would "help anybody that came out of the can [prison] anytime! He'd say, 'Well, I'd see what I can for you. Here's five hundred bucks; go get yourselves some clothes and whatever the fuck you need'. Dunnie was like that. He was generous to a fault".[19] Another West End Gang thief, Billy Morgan, called him "a very generous man" who was "very articulate" and "he never got mad. He was a perfect gentleman".[13]
In January 1982, Ryan learned that two Hells Angels, Denis "Le Curé" Kennedy and Charles Hachey, were planning to kidnap Ryan's children to force him to forgive their drug debts.[21] Ryan gave an ultimatum to Buteau that either the two would-be kidnappers be killed or else he would cease selling drugs to the biker club.[21] Buteau dispatched Trudeau after the two, whom Trudeau executed after taking them out for drinks in a bar.[22] In 1983, Ryan had become wealthy enough to purchase to a large house at 541 Montrose Drive in the wealthy neighborhood of Beaconsfield, where he lived with his wife and two children.[5]
In 1983, Ryan sent McLaughlin, who proved to be very bloodthirsty as he enjoyed killing people to a farm in New Brunswick owned by Noel Winters with orders to stay there until the media furor caused by his killings in Montreal ceased.[7] Going with McLaughlin to New Brunswick was his girlfriend, Maria Kraus-Hillebrand.[7] On 23 April 1984, the decomposing bodies of McLaughlin and Kraus-Hillebrand were found buried in a shallow grave in a rural area outside of Saint John.[7] Based upon the state of decomposition, the police estimated that McLaughlin and Kraus-Hillebrand had been killed in late 1983, and charged Winters with the murders.[7] Winters believed that Ryan had sent McLaughlin to kill him over an unpaid drug debt, leading to him to strike first.[7] Winters hanged himself in his cell the next day as he believed that Ryan would have him murdered in prison.[7]
Murder
Ryan was murdered on 13 November 1984.[23] On the evening of his death, Ryan was at the Nittolo's Jardin Motel on St. Jacques Street West in Montreal when Paul April, a French-Canadian associate, told him there was an attractive young woman waiting to have sex with him in the adjoining room.[4] April and his associate, Robert Lelièvre, who had a shotgun, planned to tie Ryan to a chair and force him to reveal where he had hidden his fortune before killing him.[4] Ryan resisted and threw a chair at Lelièvre, who opened fire with his shotgun.[4] As Ryan lay dying on the floor, someone finished him off by shooting him in the head with a .45 handgun.[16] It is unclear who actually shot Ryan. One of Ryan's killers, Eddie Philips, told his brother, John Philips "I shot a dead man!", claiming he had shot Ryan after his death on the orders of April and Lelièvre.[24] Ryan's killers fled so quickly that they did not take any of the valuables on his corpse.[25] The police found in Ryan's wallet $6,350 in cash along with a gold chain still around his neck and a Rolex watch still on his wrist.[25]
Four days later, Ryan's funeral was held at St. Augustine of Canterbury Church in Montreal, attended by his mother May, wife Evelyn, his two children, and another 200 mourners.
Books
- Auger, Michel; Edwards, Peter (2012). The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime: From Captain Kidd to Mom Boucher. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0771030499.
- O'Connor, D'Arcy (2011). Montreal's Irish Mafia: The True Story of the Infamous West End Gang. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons.
- Schneider, Stephen (2009). Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470835005..
External links
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Schneider 2009, p. 345.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Auger & Edwards 2012, p. 210.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 133.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Auger & Edwards 2012, p. 211.
- ^ a b O'Connor 2011, p. 142.
- ^ a b c d e f O'Connor 2011, p. 135.
- ^ a b c d e f g h O'Connor 2011, p. 141.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 94-97.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 97.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 108-109.
- ^ a b c O'Connor 2011, p. 111-112.
- ^ Auger & Edwards 2012, p. 210-211.
- ^ a b O'Connor 2011, p. 137.
- ^ a b c d O'Connor 2011, p. 138.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 12.
- ^ a b c d e f Schneider 2009, p. 346.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 201.
- ^ a b O'Connor 2011, p. 157.
- ^ a b c O'Connor 2011, p. 136.
- ^ "The perks of the biker". macleans.ca. 21 April 1986. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
- ^ a b Schneider 2009, p. 399.
- ^ Schneider 2009, p. 400.
- ^ ISBN 9780470676158.
- ^ O'Connor 2011, p. 149.
- ^ a b O'Connor 2011, p. 145.
- ^ a b O'Connor 2011, p. 146.
- ^ Thanh Ha, Tu (30 August 2018). "Montreal mobster Alan Ross called for a bloody reckoning". The Globe & Mail. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
- ^ Irish Mob Boss Matticks Loses Battle With Cancer In Canada Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (January 20, 2015) Archived February 8, 2022, at the Wayback Machine