Dupuy’s role as leader of the Bo-Gars has been common knowledge among gang members for decades

Its leader has spent almost all of the last three years behind bars, and there’s a chance that is where he’ll be for another three.

But as Chenier (Big) Dupuy waits in a detention centre – expecting to learn in February whether he will serve up to another 40 months for drug trafficking – the Bo-Gars, a street gang he is alleged to lead, appear to be very active.

Several details about the Bo-Gars were recently revealed while sentence arguments were made in Dupuy’s drug trafficking case last month. Unlike most gangs based in northeastern Montreal, which fade after a few years, the Bo-Gars have been around for two decades with Dupuy, 34, at the helm the whole time. He sports a tattoo on his right shoulder depicting a firearm pointed at a head with the inscription “Only Stronger Survive.”

According to Det.-Sgt. Jean-Claude Gauthier, a Montreal police street gang expert who testified at Dupuy’s sentence hearing, the Bo-Gars are an offshoot of a defunct gang called the Master B that emerged from Montreal North in 1985 and was founded by Beauvoir Jean, 46, a man who now counsels youth on how to avoid joining gangs. (The B in Master B was taken from Jean’s first name.)

In a report submitted to Quebec Court Judge Jean-Pierre Boyer, Gauthier describes the Bo-Gars, estimated to have 18 members, as having “the leadership level above all the gangs in the Red alliance. The Bo-Gars gang is principally active in the Montreal North and Rivière des Prairies sectors. They also have activities outside the province. The criminal activities of the Bo-Gars include murder, attempted murder, drive-by shootings, infractions related to firearms, drug trafficking (in particular, crack), break-ins, armed robbery and pimping.”

The Red alliance that Gauthier mentions is a grouping of street gangs who refer to themselves as Bloods. Their sometimes rivals are grouped under the Blue, or Crips, alliance.

Dupuy’s first gang-related arrest as an adult was on weapons charges in 1995 when police in Toronto, acting on a tip from Montreal police, arrested four members of the Bo-Gars. The police suspected they were in Toronto to send a violent message to a rival group by disrupting a Caribbean festival. In the follow-up to the arrests, Toronto police learned one of the four men they arrested had rented five motel rooms in the city. The rooms were raided and five more gang members were arrested, including Dupuy and his older brother Charles-Yves. All of the men were armed.

Gauthier said Charles-Yves, 39, was a member of the Master B and probably set the example his younger sibling followed. The older brother is alleged to be a member of the Bo-Gars, but Chenier is considered the gang’s leader.

Dupuy denies even being part of the Bo-Gars. During sentencing arguments, he said, in reference to Gauthier’s testimony: “There is nothing that can prove that I am in the gang. It’s just blah, blah, blah.”

His lawyer, Serge Lamontagne, was more eloquent. After sentencing arguments, he told reporters that police are too quick to assume the existence of a gang.

“We shouldn’t forget territorial questions involve people going to the same schools, living in same ghettos and so they are often together. They are together and do things like smoke (pot) or other small things, and (the police) say ‘they’re a gang,’ so we all say ‘they’re a gang.’ We have to stop this,” Lamontagne said.

Dupuy’s role as leader of the Bo-Gars has been common knowledge among gang members for decades, Gauthier said during the hearing.

“He is known. Even the rivals know he is the leader,” Gauthier said, adding that in 2002, while members of the Bo-Gars were investigated for stealing firearms from people advertising their sale in classified ads, Dupuy was recorded on a wiretap telling his sister he was the head of the gang and had territory to protect.

To further his point, Gauthier recounted how Beauvoir Jean was recently the target of a shooting in Montreal North in June. Jean approached two men arguing outside a strip mall on Pascal St. and tried to calm things down. He later told police that Philistin Paul, 32, a man known to associate with Bloods, punched him in the face and fired a shot in his direction. Jean told police, in a videotaped statement, that he believed Paul was trying to make a statement that he now controlled Montreal North. He said Paul mistakenly assumed that Dupuis “got five years” in the drug trafficking case and Paul was now “boss of the neighbourhood.”

Paul has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting, and his trial is scheduled to resume this month.

Dupuy insists he is not a gang member and accuses police of targeting him whenever he finishes serving a sentence. In arguing that he is not a chronic repeat offender, Dupuis claims to have invested money in a hair salon in St. Léonard and to be involved in the music career of Fritz Gérald Michel, 37, who is also known as King and has recorded rap songs under that name. Police say they believe Michel is involved with the Bloods. Dupuy said Michel recently signed a contract with a major recording label in Europe.

Michel and known members of the Bo-Gars were with Dupuy on Dec. 22, 2007, when the alleged gang leader was arrested inside Café Univers in Laval as police responded to a 911 call about a fight. When officers arrived, an employee told them they could find a very large and aggressive man inside the manager’s office.

When officers entered the office, Dupuy greeted them and tried to convince them he was just settling a matter with the manager. The manager then blurted out that Dupuy was armed. Dupuy was grabbed by the officers, who found he was carrying a 9-millimetre firearm.

Dupuy was kept in custody while he was charged with intimidation, assault and uttering threats in the Café Univers case. He pleaded guilty, on May 8, 2008, to possession of a prohibited and loaded weapon, assault and uttering threats. He was sentenced to six months and was released from a detention centre on Sept. 7, 2008.

Michel was also with Dupuy on Sept. 10, 2008, three days after he was released, at the Solid Gold strip club on St. Laurent Blvd.

Dupuy got into an argument with seven men believed to be members of the Kraz Brizz, a rival gang. Someone among the group of seven tried to shoot Dupuy as he and Michel headed for the exit. Dupuy jumped on the hood of a taxi parked outside the strip bar. The driver, spooked by the sound of gunshots, drove off and then stopped about a block away, with Dupuy still clinging to the hood.

It was Dupuy’s evasive answers to police after the shooting that led them to conduct surveillance on a Laval apartment where he lived. Investigators also had information from sources who told them Dupuy spoke of taking over drug trafficking in Montreal North and Rivière des Prairies as he neared the end of his sentence in September 2008. It took police about seven weeks to gather enough evidence to have Dupuy picked up for drug trafficking in October 2008, and he has been in custody since.

At least three other men considered to be Bo-Gars members, or associates of the gang, have criminal cases pending against them, and another member was recently targeted in a gang-related shooting.

Eneck Baptiste, 35, was recently the victim of a shooting inside the Red Lite after-hours club in Laval. On Nov. 6, Laval police showed up at the club while responding to a call about shots fired inside. When they arrived, they couldn’t find anyone who had been shot. But they soon learned Baptiste, who was with Dupuy when he was arrested at Café Univers in 2007, had shown up at a nearby hospital in a taxi. He was reported to be in critical condition, but managed to leave the hospital days later.

Musset St. Cyr, 26, a man with known ties to a gang affiliated with the Reds, has been charged with attempted murder in Laval court and has a bail hearing scheduled for Jan. 17.

Another sign the Bo-Gars are active involves charges of intimidation and uttering threats filed in Montreal last year against Charles-Yves Dupuy.

Edison Saintil, 26, another reputed member of the Bo-Gars, faces 11 charges alleging he tried to run down at least three people with his car after an altercation outside the Sunrise after-hours club on Viau St. near the Metropolitan Blvd. He is charged with damaging at least six cars in the parking lot of the club on Feb. 7 and with assault using a weapon, his car. On Dec. 16, a judge who heard the preliminary inquiry in the case decided there was enough evidence to go to trial. What happened that night outside the after-hours club is not believed to be gang-related.

Chenier Dupuy will learn on Feb. 18 whether he will be sentenced to about 40 months in prison, as the prosecution is seeking, or a symbolic one-day sentence on top of the time he has already spent behind bars since his arrest.



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