But during his bail hearing, the police acknowledged that it had been tough gathering evidence on Matticks. They described
him as a cautious man who seemed to assume he was under constant police surveillance.
An example of how cautious Matticks and Lekkas were came from a bug that had been placed in Lekkas' car. Over one three-and-a-half-month period, the pair had only one conversation that was of any interest to the investigation. Lekkas and Matticks often talked on walkie-talkies instead of using cellular phones, which thwarted any attempts to pick up their conversations through wiretaps. One time, as the police listened in through a telephone wiretap, they overheard Katherine Harris complain about hearing the phone make a strange sound. Matticks, who was on the other end, immediately figured correctly that the phone was bugged. He told her to hang up and call back again. He asked if she heard a delay on the line. She said she did. He said that meant the police were listening in.
On Lekkas' car bug, the police overheard him constantly saying that he felt he was being followed. He once asked Matticks if there was something they could buy that could detect if they were being followed. It appeared that Matticks was successful in that search. When they searched his house, the police found a device that could detect radio frequencies. It would vibrate if it picked up frequencies coming from police surveillance equipment.
While the police did not have a mountain of evidence, they did have enough to link Matticks to the Nomads Bank. If they could prove Matticks and Lekkas were behind the Beef and Beef 2 accounts, the men would likely face a sentence of anywhere between four and eight years. But as Matticks was preparing to be freed on bail, months after his arrest, a surprise announcement was made. “Mr. Lekkas is not present your honor, the reason being that Mr. Lekkas, for the second time, has tried to commit suicide,” defense lawyer Loris Cavaliere told Justice Morier on July 16, 2001.
The following day, the defense revealed another shocker. “The minister's office has informed me this morning that my former client Elias Lekkas has decided to become an [informant],” Matticks' lawyer said.
A Crown prosecutor then informed Judge Morier that Lekkas had indeed met with the police the night before, while he was recovering from a suicide attempt. The Crown said she could add new evidence to the bail hearing because of what Lekkas was leaking to the police. It would later be revealed that by agreeing to testify against Matticks, Lekkas would get a sentencing recommendation of seven years on top of what he had already served. But Lekkas didn't end up testifying against Matticks. Faced with the prospect of having his business partner testify against him, Matticks pleaded guilty in what would be his most serious conviction in a criminal career that had spanned three decades.
More than two years after he agreed to become an informant, Lekkas found himself on the witness stand anyway, testifying against members of the Hells Angels and Rockers being tried in the megatrial heard before Justice Pierre Beliveau. Lekkas' day in court began with him watching a video. He was asked by a prosecutor if he recognized himself. He said he did. The video was of Lekkas taking money from the apartment building on Beaubien Street. Lekkas said he normally took $500,000 from the apartment at a time.
“I was a drug importer and wholesaler with my partner Gerald Matticks. We had sold several hundred kilos of hash to Norm Robitaille and 65 kilos of cocaine. That is where we would pick up the money,” he said. “We imported seven different importations.” When asked about Gerald Matticks, Lekkas said they were equal partners in a business that saw them smuggle in drugs through the Port of Montreal and take a percentage of the cargo as payment. “I had met Gerry in 1995 after he got out of jail
[in the Matticks Affair]. And he owned the building that had a meat wholesale company underneath. I was working downstairs in the meat wholesale plant. Gerry had an office upstairs in the building and working every day together, we got close. At that time we had stolen a container, a container of Tommy Hilfiger clothing. After that we had bought a load of stolen chicken and during that time business for Gerry wasn't ...Gerry controlled...” Lekkas said with some hesitation before blurting out what the police had known about Matticks for years. “He was the door of the Port of Montreal for containers to come in ...Some people had approached him to bring in some product. From those meetings I went down to Colombia to establish contact with the owner of the merchandise. From that trip [came] the first importation that we did of 2,000 plus kilos of hashish.”
“When you're talking about product you're not talking about coconuts,” the prosecutor asked.
“No.”
During his sentencing hearing, Matticks' own lawyer would acknowledge his client had the ability to get drugs through the Port of Montreal, most times without hassle. His influence in the Port of Montreal, in particular with the people responsible for unloading the cargo ships, was crucial in getting drugs through. That influence allowed him to demand a cut of the product being brought in.
“From the different series of importations, we would ...take a percentage of the product. The first one was 33 percent. That is what we would charge to bring in the merchandise for either ourselves or the people who owned it,” Lekkas said, adding he and Matticks would go on to sell the drugs for profit. What they did not have was a distribution network. So Matticks and Lekkas moved their product in bulk. “We had different people that we sold to. Namely, one was Norm Robitaille,” he said. “He was a Hells Angel.”
Lekkas was then shown a series of surveillance photos. He was able to identify Kenny Bedard, whom he said was always working as Robitaille's bodyguard when they met. Lekkas was then asked if the sales were limited to hashish.
“No, we had sold several hundred kilos of hashish but we sold 65 kilos of cocaine as well. But actually, two of those kilos were wood, so it turn out to be 63 kilos. . . . We were paid in cash. We would give the product and then after that we would have a meeting. Soon after [Matticks] would say 'okay, go to Beaubien, apartment 504,' and we would pick up the cash.” Lekkas said the Hells Angels would only pay for the drugs they bought in $500,000 installments. He believed he visited the Nomads Bank about five times to pick up money, and he acknowledged that Donald Driver went with him once. “We would take the money back to Gerry's house in La Prairie and that is where we would count it and see if everything was okay.” Lekkas described the transactions as careful business ventures. He said that before they dipped into the cash, he and Matticks would make sure their expenses for a shipment were covered.
Dealing with the Hells Angels had been so profitable for Matticks and Lekkas they were ultimately able to purchase their own drugs and smuggle them into the port. Lekkas said that, through their partnership, he and Matticks accumulated $22 million in merchandise, after expenses. Lekkas described how even though they sometimes had spectacular failures, the profit margin was still good. In December 1999, Matticks and Lekkas managed to bring in 2,363 kilos of hashish through the Port of Montreal. A month later, they tried to bring in 10,000 kilos of hashish but it was seized by the police. In April 2000, they helped to import 260 kilos of cocaine from Panama. Matticks and Lekkas sold their 25 percent cut, 65 kilos, to the Nomads chapter. This transaction was found in the spreadsheets the police had been handed by Dany Kane.
Later that same year, the partners brought in 4,037 kilos of hashish. Matticks was given a percentage of the drugs but was also paid in cash. Several people were arrested in connection with this shipment, so Matticks was not paid in full. Instead, he was given half of a 3,000 kilogram shipment of hashish that came through the port later. He sold the 1,500 kilos to the Nomads chapter.
Their sixth smuggling operation, in October 2000, brought in 5,000 kilos of hash. Matticks was to get 25 percent of the drugs, but it was seized by the Montreal Urban Community Police. This time, the police made a big deal out of the seizure by calling a press conference to announce it. At the time, they had arrested no one, but they attributed the smuggling effort to the West End Gang and accused port employees of helping to get drugs through. In turn, the Montreal longshoremen's union called a press conference of their own and threatened to sue the Montreal Urban Community Police. Lekkas and Matticks' last smuggling operation was in February 2001, a shipment of 9,000 kilos of hashish. They had done seven major smuggling operations together.
Their success appeared to intrigue Maurice (Mom) Boucher. Lekkas said that after he and Matticks worked out the deal to take a 65 kilogram cut from the cocaine shipment they helped smuggle in from Panama, Boucher paid a visit to Viandes 3-1. He was intent on finding out who the owner of the rest of the cocaine was. Lekkas said Boucher often referred to Matticks as “Beef” in their conversations. The meeting was a chilling detail considering Boucher's lust for a monopoly over Montreal's cocaine market and how the Nomads chapter was going about obtaining that monopoly. The Crown prosecutor did not miss the opportunity to highlight this to the jury. He asked Lekkas if he was there for that meeting, and Lekkas replied yes but that Boucher was told they didn't know who the actual owner of the cocaine was.
During his six-year partnership with Matticks, Lekkas had come to learn much about the world of narcotics. He had flown
to Colombia to meet with members of the powerful Cali Cartel. These contacts would later help in smuggling other shipments and, ultimately, the deal he and Matticks financed on their own.
In a relatively short period of time, Lekkas had gone from making roughly $24,000 at Viandes 3-1 to living the life of a millionaire. In 1997 and 1998, he reported making $24,000 annually and then getting a significant raise in 1999 to $30,ooo.In 1992, Lekkas had purchased a modest house for $120,000. But he was later able to renovate it to the tune of $70,000, including a $10,000 renovation to his kitchen. He also held stocks worth between $20,000 and $40,000 and was able to rent a
BMW
for $12,000 a year. In February 2001, he took a trip to Cancun worth more than $4,000. He also sent his family to Florida, purchased a boat and was looking into buying a
BMW
M5.
But that all came crashing down on March 28, 2001. “I was arrested for drug trafficking, conspiracy and gangsterism. I was arrested in La Prairie,” Lekkas said when describing how his life took a serious turn for the worse. He told the jury that while he was awaiting trial in the Montreal detention center he initially thought that the proof the Crown had against himself and Matticks was weak. He said he decided to become an informant “under some unfortunate circumstances.” He was asked what those circumstances were and the defense lawyers objected strenuously to this. Lekkas was instructed to explain his decision to turn informant in very general terms.
“I had problems with my partner Gerry. And that was the only way ... I tried to take my life at one time. So, in that game I was finished,” Lekkas said, adding Matticks apparently believed he was an informant before he actually became one.
While he testified before the jury, Lekkas was shown his witness contract, which said the Crown would pay him $400 a week
for the next two years. Lekkas talked about how he had to admit to all of his crimes. He attested to the seven smuggling operations and received his sentence. At that point, he did not have a criminal record but was still facing charges for the load of stolen chickens. That robbery dated back to 1999 and, while it might sound like petty theft, it involved a large tractor-trailer filled with 1,000 cases of frozen chicken that had been stolen from a Montreal suburb. At his sentencing hearing on July 11, 2002, the case of the stolen chicken was transferred from Longueuil court to Montreal so all of Lekkas's legal woes could be wrapped into one neat package.
“When I say chicken breasts it is a large, large, large amount of chicken breasts. I think it is a value of $57,000. He is charged with possession because this big van in which these chickens were stolen was brought to St-Hubert,” the Crown prosecutor said, adding the chicken breasts went straight to Matticks' store. Somehow, the real owner of the breasts suspected they could be found at Viandes 3-1 and sent the police there.
“Mr. Matticks was himself in constant conspiracy with other people. Mr. Lekkas has been described to me as being a kind of coordinator of the activities of Mr. Matticks,” the Crown prosecutor said. He recommended a seven-and-a-half-year sentence on top of the sixteen months Lekkas had already spent behind bars leading up to his guilty plea.
Ironically, it was Matticks' mistrust after their arrest that turned Lekkas into an informant. It was also not the only time this would happen within the context of Operation Springtime 2001. Serge Boutin, a very important drug dealer for the Rockers, said he decided to become an informant primarily because Normand Robitaille apparently assumed he was one. Boutin's logic was that he was better off as a living, breathing real informant than dead thanks to Robitaille's misplaced suspicions.
Matticks' paranoia became an issue at his bail hearing. The
issue was raised by his lawyer Claude Girouard. The defense lawyer asked a Sûreté du Québec investigator if the provincial police held any animosity toward the Matticks brothers because of the embarrassing revelations that had come out of the Poitras Commission. The lawyer revealed that the Sûreté du Québec seemed to delight in referring to Matticks as being paranoid in their surveillance reports.
Matticks likely assumed he was a huge target for the police after the charges against him in the Matticks Affair had been stayed in 1995. His high-level drug dealing also meant he worked with people who could never be trusted fully. When the police searched his farmhouse, they found an elaborate security system with video cameras. Inside a huge library they uncovered more than $6,200 U.S. and $41,000 Canadian. They also found an accounting sheet inside a book in the library. The accounting ledger supported Lekkas' testimony that they had dealt in $22 million worth of merchandise. At the house in Carignan, the police found a half-pound of hashish. Matticks' mistress Cindy Wade would claim it was hers and plead guilty to possession in court. Inside one of Matticks' cars, they found a police scanner and a device that could pick up conversations from a long distance. They also found a tazer. At trial, testifying officers also mentioned the two letters found in the folder on his desk, including the one inviting him to extend to the Bandidos his services as a door to the Port of Montreal. Matticks' lawyer tried to suggest the letter was intended for Gerald's brother Richard Matticks, who already had known ties to the Rock Machine and Salvatore Cazzetta.