Allan Ronald Ross (17 April 1944 – 21 August 2018), better known as "Allan the Weasel", was a Canadian gangster best known for leading the West End Gang of Montreal. At the time of his arrest in Florida in 1991, he was described by American law enforcement as the fifth most important drug kingpin in the world.
Criminal career Thief Ross was born as Alan Ross, but he was usually known as Allan. Unlike most other West End Gang members who grew up in poverty, Ross was born into a well off family in the middle class district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal. The West End Gang has an average of about 150 members at any given moment and most come from the Pointe-Saint-Charles district of Montreal. Ross's criminal record began at the age of 18 when he was arrested three times within a period of five months for automobile theft, a home invasion and automobile theft again. He was first convicted of a criminal offense, namely automobile theft, on 8 May 1962. Ross joined the West End Gang in the 1960s, and rose up to become the right-hand man to the boss Frank "Dunie" Ryan.
Initially only a lowly thief and a truck hijacker, Ross started to rise to prominence in 1976 when Ryan put him in charge of the West End Gang's drug operations. The journalist Dan Burke, who knew Ross as a teenager in the 1970s, recalled that he and his associates liked to play pool at Smitty's Bar, saying it was "like a scene out of Goodfellas. That's what it was like". In 1980, Ross was convicted of possession of a narcotic for the purposes of trafficking and sentenced to 23 months in prison. He was friends with Frankie Cotroni, the son of Frank Cotroni, the number two man in the Cotroni family, which proved to be a useful connection. In 1984, following the death of his older brother Vic Cotroni due to cancer, Frank Cotroni became the new boss of the Cotroni family. Another connection Ross forged was with Sidney "Sid" Leithman, a high-profile lawyer who was the preferred defense counsel for gangsters in Montreal. Leithman had successfully defended several members of the West End Gang, most notably Ryan. Leithman who was a workaholic often used cocaine to relieve legal-related stress. Ross was generous in supplying Leithman with cocaine.
The "Emperor of Coke" When Ryan was murdered on 13 November 1984, Ross took command of the West End Gang. His first action as leader was to hire the hitman Yves "Apache" Trudeau of the Hells Angels' Laval chapter to hunt down and kill those responsible for the murder of Ryan. At Ryan's funeral at St. Augustine of Canterbury Catholic Church, the police observed Ross talking to three Hells Angels, namely Laurent "L'anglais" Viau, Michel Blass and Yves Trudeau. Viau was the president of the Angels Laval chapter, to which both Blass and Trudeau were members of, and it is believed that the subject of the conversation was Ross seeking permission from Viau to have Trudeau and Blass hunt down Ryan's killers.
The man responsible for Ryan's murder, Paul April, was boasting that with Ryan dead, he was now roi de Montréal ("king of Montreal"). On 19 November 1984, Trudeau visited April's apartment to pay his respects to the self-proclaimed roi de Montréal on behalf of the Hells Angels. During the visit, Trudeau noticed that April did not have a functioning television, and he promised him that he would bring him one along with a VCR. On 25 November 1984, Trudeau and Blass dropped off a TV, a VCR and a video tape to the apartment where Ryan's killers, Paul April and Robert Lelièvre, were hiding. Also in apartment 917 that day were Gilles Paquette, a petty criminal, and Louis Charles, a professional bank robber who had met April while they were in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary. After leaving the apartment, Trudeau used a remote control to set off a bomb that he had hidden inside the TV. The explosion killed both April and Lelièvre plus the two other men in the apartment. The explosion caused by the fifteen kilograms of C-4 plastic explosive hidden inside the TV was so powerful as to rip apart the bodies of all four men to such extent that the police had much difficulty in identifying what remained of the corpses that were spattered around apartment 917. Trudeau later testified: "I showed them the power of the Hells Angels".
Trudeau had been promised by Ross that he would pay him $200,000 to kill April, and he had been paid $25,000 in advance. When Trudeau tried to collect the rest of the $200,000 after killing April and Lelièvre, Ross told him he should go collect the money from the Halifax and Sorel chapters of the Hells Angels who owned the West End Gang drug debts, saying he would forgive those debts if those chapters paid the money to Trudeau instead. The president of the Hells Angels Halifax chapter, David "Wolf" Carroll, paid Trudeau $98,000. Carroll later learned that the Laval chapter was actually entitled to one-quarter of the money, and that Trudeau had used the extra money to support his cocaine addiction. As the Halifax chapter was much poorer than the Laval chapter, Trudeau's behavior was considered to be especially crass. Trudeau's stealing from the Halifax chapter led directly to the Lennoxville massacre of March 1985.
The third man involved in the plot to kill Ryan, Eddie Philips, was murdered in March 1985 by a West End Gang member David Singer. On 25 March 1985, Philips was invited to drink with Billy McAllister of the West End Gang at the Victoria Station bar on rue de Jean Talon in Mount Royal. As Philips was walking towards the bar in the parking lot, a motorcycle rode up to him while Singer, who was in the passenger seat, stepped off and shot Philips five times in the back. Singer then jumped back on the motorcycle. The driver of the motorcycle has never been conclusively identified.
Singer went to Florida to hide out, but Ross had doubts whether he could handle a police interrogation, leading him to order Singer's murder. Ross had gone into business with John Quitoni, a former New Jersey state trooper. In May 1985, during a visit to Fort Lauderdale, Ross requested that Quitoni work with Alain Strong, a West End Gang member. On 10 May 1985, Strong paged Quitoni that he needed a handgun, which Quitoni provided. Later that night, Strong together with another West End Gang member, Raymond Desfossés, murdered Singer. Found inside of the pockets of Singer's pants was a piece of paper with the telephone number for Ross's wife.
On 28 August 1985, Trudeau, who had turned Crown's evidence after the Lenoxville massacre, testified that it was Ross who had hired him to kill April and Lelièvre in November 1984. Despite Trudeau's testimony, the Canadian authorities took no action against Ross, under the grounds that the word of a hitman was not to be trusted, although that did not stop the authorities from charging Hells Angels on the basis of Trudeau's testimony. Ross lacked the charisma of Ryan and was respected rather than loved by the West End Gang. Ross was also considered to be more greedy than Ryan as Ross would not assist other members of the West End Gang facing financial issues with money as Ryan had frequently done. Ryan had often paid the rent of West End Gang members facing eviction, a practice that Ross discontinued. The moniker of "Allan the Weasel", or la Belette as he was known to French-Canadians, reflected his weasel-like face and his ability to "weasel" out of any situation.
In the late 1980s, Ross was a successful drug dealer who frequently went to Florida and Aruba to import cocaine, marijuana and hashish. Forming a partnership with a U.S.-based cell of the Cali Cartel,Irish Mafia Don “The Weasel” Dead At 74, Montreal Drug Lord Dies In U.S. Prison System Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (September 2, 2018) Ross took charge of a drug smuggling network running from Florida to Quebec. Ryan had been known as the "king of coke", but Ross, who was even more successful as a drug dealer, became known as the "emperor of coke". Ross was a crucial player into a drug smuggling network that brought cocaine from South America into Montreal. He also imported heroin from the "Golden Triangle" nations of Thailand, Burma and Laos, and the "Golden Crescent" nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.
Starting in late 1984, cars equipped with secret compartments delivered fifteen-kilogram packages of cocaine on a biweekly basis. By 1986, the amount of cocaine being smuggled had increased to 20–40 kilograms. In 1987, Ross started to export cocaine to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In 1986, he met with a Scottish drug dealer, William Blackledge, in Florida to arrange for cocaine to shipped to Europe. Ross was greatly helped by the fact that Inspector Claude Savoie, the director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)'s drug squad and assistant director of the Criminal Intelligence Service, was working for him. The conduit between Ross and Savoie was a prominent Montreal lawyer, Sidney Leithman, who was Ross's lawyer. Ross paid Savoie $200,000 per week for his information. In late 1989, Leithman introduced Savoie to Ross at a meeting in his office, and brokered the deal under which Savoie would sell information to Ryan. The police eventually concluded that Ross knew too much about their activities, and that he must have a "mole" within their ranks. In 1989, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) listed Ross as one of the biggest drug dealers in the entire world.
According to prosecutors, Ross was behind two contract killings carried out by the hitman Gérald Gallant under order from West End Gang lieutenant Raymond Desfossés. Gallant fatally shot Salvatore Luzi, the co-owner of a Montreal strip club with Ross, in Lorraine on 28 May 1990. Police believe the motive for the killing involved money lost in the business by Ross.Notorious Quebec gangster to appear before parole board Friday Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette (12 January 2018) On 18 March 1991, Gallant murdered West End Gang associate Richard "Ricky" McGurnaghan at the Olympic Tavern in Pointe-Saint-Charles. Like Luzi, McGurnaghan had also been feuding with Ross in the months preceding his death; he reportedly slashed Ross' face with a broken beer bottle during a physical altercation in December 1990.West End Gang Leader “The Weasel” Lives Up To Nickname, Avoided Arrest In Pair Of ’90s Hits Scott Burnstein, GangsterReport.com (September 4, 2018) While Ross ultimately escaped prosecution for the murders of Luzi and McGurnaghan, Gallant and Desfossés pleaded guilty to their roles in the killings in 2009 and 2014, respectively.
Downfall In 1990, Quitoni was arrested in El Paso, Texas for drug smuggling. In exchange for a lesser sentence, Quitoni revealed to the American authorities his involvement in Singer's murder in 1985. On 13 May 1991, Leithman was murdered in Montreal. In October 1991, Ross was arrested in Fort Lauderdale. The U.S. Marshals arrested Ross on 7 October 1991 as he was arriving at the airport. After his arrest, he told Detective Chris Dale of the Broward County Sheriff's Office: "Not that I would, but it sure would be nice if I could give you $200,000 or so and you would let me go."