Skip to main content

Images provided by Interpol show Yves Denis, 35, Serge Pomerleau, 49, and Denis Lefebvre, 53.INTERPOL/The Associated Press

It was one of the lesser-known moments in Quebec crime annals – an episode that highlighted the brazen, ambitious minds of a gang. On a frigid, windy afternoon in the spring of 2010, armed men riding on snowmobiles, and assisted by a helicopter hovering above, tried to rob a truck loaded with gold bars.

A helicopter features again in the gang's story – four years later, three of its kingpins were behind bars facing trial for drug trafficking when they made a daring escape that garnered headlines around the world, using a helicopter that swooped into the prison yard and plucked them away.

After an intense manhunt, the trio was recaptured, and three weeks ago a jury found the three guilty of a series of drug and gangsterism charges. On Thursday the provincial government released the findings of an administrative investigation into their escape attempt.

The trial proceedings and the investigation report, which details how the men's craftiness foiled a blindered correctional service, now give a better picture of a ruthless, colourful gang who had escaped public scrutiny until this summer's escape attempt.

The three escapees – Serge Pomerleau, 50, Denis Lefebvre, 53, and Yves Denis, 35 – were already known to police in their native region, the Abitibi mining area, 500 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

Starting in the spring of 2009, police began investigating what they described as an organized-crime ring based in Val-d'Or, in the northwest region of Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

The trial this summer heard that the kingpins had ties with the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels and trafficked in cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines. And last year, the Charbonneau inquiry heard allegations that Mr. Lefebvre owned a paving firm that charged 30 per cent more than others but kept competitors at bay with threats and arson.

A former convict, who later became a Crown witness, testified at a trial that he became friends with one of Mr. Denis's brothers, Éric, while the two served time together at the Donnacona penitentiary.

Éric was released first in 2007 and pledged to keep in touch and take care of his convict friend.

By the spring of 2010, when the convict left the penitentiary, Yves Denis picked him up and asked him to take part in an armed robbery against a truck carrying gold out of the Camflo mill, an ore processing facility in Malartic, Que. According to the plan, the former convict and two Denis brothers, Éric and Benoît, would ride snowmobiles to the Camflo mill, while a helicopter owned by Mr. Lefebvre would conduct surveillance overhead for them, the trial heard.

They set out on March 25 but Benoît, who went into a wooded area to scout ahead, didn't return in time when the truck drove out. They returned empty-handed.

Unbeknownst to them, the group had been under police surveillance.

Later that fall, Benoît was killed, a few weeks before the police cracked down. Concluding an operation code-named Écrevisse (Crayfish), the Sûreté du Québec arrested 80 suspects between October and November, 2010. In addition to drug charges, Mr. Lefebvre was charged with the first-degree murder in the death of Benoît Denis, while Mr. Pomerleau and Yves Denis were charged with conspiring to commit murder.

The murder trial will take place next January. First, the trio was tried in Quebec City for drug trafficking.

Last March, the three and another accused, Thierry Béland, were transferred to Orsainville prison, north of Quebec City.

According to an informant who testified at the trial, the accused had plotted to escape by helicopter as early as 2011. The informant tipped his SQ contact. As a result, the provincial police warned prison officials that the four men transferred to Orsainville were flight risks and, on arrival, they were assigned the highest security classification and held in their cells for 23 hours and 15 minutes every day.

However, by mid-March, when pre-trial procedural hearings began in their drug-trafficking trial, the defence lawyers twice complained about their clients' detention conditions. They threatened to file a request for a writ of habeas corpus, to get the courts to review if the men were lawfully detained.

The judge summoned prison warden Brigitte Girard to court for the next day.

"If I am confronted by a habeas corpus, I might have to render decisions that I would rather not have to make," the judge told her.

In an e-mail to a superior, Ms. Girard said that, "I felt that the judge wanted to send me a clear message that he didn't want to meddle in our management but that he didn't want it to harm the trial."

As a result, the four were now reclassified as regular inmates.

On June 3, the four refused to go to their regular yard for exercise. Courtyard No. 4 "didn't seem to please them," a service note said, with no further explanation.

Four days later, on a Saturday evening, the four were among a group of 17 inmates taken to a bigger courtyard.

Around 7:43 p.m., a small helicopter landed and whisked away Mr. Pomerleau, Mr. Lefebvre and Mr. Denis.

The report suggests that the escapees used a smuggled cellphone to contact the helicopter. The report notes that prisoners didn't know ahead of time the exact moment they would be taken to the courtyard. Nevertheless, the helicopter showed up within 13 minutes.

"The operation lasted less than a minute," the investigation report said.

Two weeks later, police caught them. They were hiding in a Montreal condo stocked with seafood and $100,000 in cash.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe