Australian National Review – Montreal police chief urges parents to look for signs as gangs hire more teenagers

Montreal police chief Fady Dagher made a plea Thursday to parents of young people recruited by criminal gangs: When officers knock on their door with information that their children are headed for trouble, please listen to them.

Dagher said gangs are increasingly preying on children as young as 12.

“We can save them, we can prevent them from going down this criminal path,” he told a news conference in Montreal. “But there are parents who don’t believe us; they don’t believe they have a problem at home.”

He also had a message for merchants facing extortion, with young people often enlisted to burn down or shoot businesses that don’t comply. Dagher urged business owners to contact police “at the beginning, and not at the end.”

Commander Francis Renaud, head of the force’s organized crime unit, said between 30 and 40 cases of extortion have been reported in Montreal this summer. The hotspot is mainly the center of the city, he said.

Extortion is not a new phenomenon, and the current situation involves both old and new players trying to make inroads. Renaud noted that all types of companies are being targeted, including some with clear ties to organized crime.

What has changed over the years, Renaud said, is that the pyramid structure that dominated organized crime in Montreal for decades has collapsed over the past 10 to 15 years. It has given way to a less hierarchical, cell-like structure that is more volatile.

Montreal police have made a wave of arrests of increasingly younger suspects for gang-related activity.

On Wednesday, they announced that last week they had arrested seven teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 who allegedly belonged to a gang in the St-Léonard district. They are suspected of numerous violent crimes, including theft, firearms crimes, arson and extortion.

Police also arrested a 15-year-old in connection with an attempted arson over the weekend, and this week three people, including a minor, were arrested in connection with the shooting of a building in Old Montreal. No one was injured in the shooting. The targeted building is owned by Montreal businessman Emile Benamor, who also owns two buildings in Old Montreal that were hit by suspicious fires — one last week and the other in March 2023. A total of nine people died in the two fires.

There was also the case of a 14-year-old from Montreal who died in the Beauce region after allegedly being sent to attack a bunker allegedly belonging to a Hells Angels puppet gang in Frampton, Que.

“I think it’s terrible. “I think it’s disgusting to see adults using young children to do dirty things they can’t do because they don’t want to take the risk,” Dagher said.

In addition, Dagher said he was confident an arrest would be made last Friday in the Old Montreal fire that killed a mother and daughter from France. Léonor Geraudie, 43, and seven-year-old Vérane Reynaud Geraudie were identified by authorities. But police declined to say whether the case was related to the wave of extortion-related attacks.

In Quebec City, the Parti Québécois is calling for legislative hearings to gather testimony from parents, police and community groups about the rising number of youth being used as “cannon fodder” by organized crime.

During an exchange at the national assembly, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon mentioned fears in Montreal about violent street gangs hiring young people to commit car theft, fraud and murder. In response, Quebec Premier François Legault called the recruitment of teenagers into organized crime abhorrent and unacceptable.

At an earlier news conference, St-Pierre Plamondon, who represents a Montreal riding, called it a serious social problem. “Our youth, especially in the Montreal region, are literally being used as cannon fodder in a war between criminal groups,” said St-Pierre Plamondon. “The question is being asked… have we lost control of street gangs?”