Original Gangsters Podcast · Original Gangsters, a True Crime Talk Podcast

Current State of Canadian Hells Angels and Rizzuto Crime Family with Ken Pereira

·1 hr 22 min·5 clips

“The mob all over North America was always around the garbage companies.”

1. Original Gangsters Podcast focuses on the current Quebec underworld fight involving the Hells Angels, the Rizzuto network, and contaminated-soil trucking contracts. 2. Scott Bernstein hosts Ken Pereira, a whistleblower and recurring insider on Montreal and Quebec organized crime, because Pereira has tracked the province’s criminal-business overlaps for years. 3. The episode asks whether the Hells Angels are pulling ahead of the Rizzuto side in construction, hauling, and environmental-contract work. 4. Scott cites La Presse reporter Vincent LaRouche’s story on Valosphere, a Quebec trucking company that hauls contaminated soil and appears tied to Hells Angels influence. 5. Ken says North American mob groups have long been around garbage companies, then explains that the same pattern has shifted into environmental picking and contaminated-land disposal. 6. He says organized crime wants control from land inspectors to land buyers to the licenses that decide where contaminated soil gets dumped. 7. Ken adds that the business extends to Native reserves and to drop sites outside Quebec, including Ontario, where disposal can happen with less scrutiny. 8. Scott connects that material to Louis-Pierre Lafortune, whom he describes as a major figure in the Valosphere investigation and a consultant who appears to run the show. 9. Ken says the public inquiry and Operation Diligence left microphones and video records everywhere, but not all of the information has been processed. 10. The conversation ties Lafortune to FTQ construction leadership, the port area of Montreal, and the 1000 de la Commune condo project where fundraising dinners mixed criminal and legitimate figures. 11. Ken says the Rizzutos and Hells Angels are in a power struggle that includes Gregory Woolley, Reynald Desjardins, and Casper, with alliances shifting around prison, murder, and old grudges. 12. Scott notes that Gregory Woolley was out of prison in September 2023 and dead by November, and Ken treats that as part of the same shift in power. 13. The episode spends substantial time on Francophone Quebec’s younger street crews, which Ken says are being used as soldiers, proxies, and pawns by older figures who want to keep control. 14. Scott cites a 14-year-old boy allegedly working for the Rizzuto side through Blood Family Mafia and Ice Pick Turmel before being murdered and torched in Frampton. 15. Ken says a child or teenager being used in this way shows that the conflict has become larger than the old-school mob model of made members doing the hits themselves. 16. Scott and Ken also discuss a French tourist woman and her seven-year-old daughter killed in a firebombing, which Scott uses to ask whether the violence is reaching a tipping point. 17. Ken says a first innocent bystander death would “just explode” the situation and could trigger more hearings, more police resources, and more political attention. 18. The episode is conversational, report-driven, and built around Scott’s questions followed by long, specific answers from Ken. 19. People following Quebec organized crime, Hells Angels, or construction corruption would get the most from this conversation. 20. Casual listeners looking for a light recap of Canada’s underworld politics may skip it.

As heard by us

A sharp, current look at Quebec organized crime with real operational detail.

Ken Pereira's return feels less like nostalgia than a fresh read on Quebec's organized crime scene, with the Hells Angels, the Rizzutos, and the legitimate businesses orbiting them all kept in view.

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Why you'd press play

You want a read on the Quebec underworld through contracts, crews, and ongoing feuds.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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