Confessions of Frédérick Silva | A “federation” to sow death among the Hells

Former hitman Frédérick Silva turned his coat around in 2022, after having been at the forefront of the war waged by organized crime in Montreal for years. He has since given investigators the story of his criminal career, notably claiming responsibility for 13 murders, revealing his confessions including The Press was able to become aware. He explains that a team of assassins – named “the Federation” – had been formed to protect the Rizzuto mafia clan and chase the Hells Angels out of Montreal.

This federation, created at the end of 2020, and which had already begun to sow deaths in its path, was revealed and detailed by Silva when the latter began to collaborate with the police, during the summer of 2022, after having been sentenced to life imprisonment for three murders committed in the fall of 2018.

The motivations of Silva and his group could be compared to those of Dave Turmel, who started a rebellion against the Hells Angels in the eastern part of the province two years later.

“In our opinion, the Hells Angels no longer have their place here [à Montréal]. They work poorly and are no longer up to date with today’s reality in big cities,” Frédérick Silva explained to investigators from the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) responsible for collecting his confessions.

“In the Federation, we said: […] We’re going to kill a lot of Hells Angels. And then, our first goal was, as long as we kill them, we’re going to push them out of Montreal and the surrounding areas, and we’re going to take all the territories,” Silva said.

Generals of killer regiments

The Federation had two main goals: to eliminate its enemies and those of the Rizzuto family and, eventually, to drive the Hells Angels out of Montreal.

It was made up of four assassin team “generals”, including Silva and Gregory Woolley, who had been an ally of the Hells in the past, and other individuals like Samy Tamouro. Woolley and Tamouro were murdered in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Mexico in the fall of 2023.

It was Frédérick Silva who found the name, the Federation, by reading the definition in the Larousse dictionary.

Within the Federation, everyone was equal and had to tell everyone everything, to avoid stepping on each other’s toes when, for example, two hit teams from two different generals were on the same target.

The four members of this contract table were to help each other, exchange resources and information, and share the financing of the premiums. These were always more than $100,000 per head, because otherwise, “it’s not interesting,” Silva said.

The Rizzutos could therefore count on eyes and ears everywhere, he said. He described himself as “the iron fist” and claimed that he formed “a wall” around the Sicilian clan.

A list of people to kill

Silva also revealed that his committee had a list of several enemies to kill, which included individuals linked to the Calabrian mafia.

“We were all people who had experienced disappointments with different organizations like the Hells Angels, mafia or gangs of some kind. We’ve all been abandoned by people in the past, given false promises, etc. This had to change, otherwise it would lead to our loss or death,” he added.

As Silva described it, the Federation is, to some extent, akin to the Wolf Pack, a consortium of individuals belonging to different criminal groups, including a member of the Hells Angels (Larry Amero) and members of gangs, created in Western Canada around 2010.

Old grudges

Before founding the Federation, Silva had created an alliance with certain people, including Tamouro and Woolley, to eliminate individuals, including former members of the Hells Angels’ defunct school club, the Rockers, because they had pleaded guilty during the proceedings of Operation Spring 2001, thus setting a minimum sentence for the other co-defendants.

Former Rock Machine, tough opponents of the Hells Angels during the biker wars of the 1990s, and who later became members of the Hells Angels, were also targeted, because their entry into the ranks of their former enemies was not accepted by all.

On this subject, Silva recounts that while he was preparing to be transferred to the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary, where Maurice Boucher was, Gregory Woolley asked him to send a message to Boucher: that death by André Sauvageau was a gift from him.

Silva understood that Sauvageau, a former Rock Machine turned Hells Angels, was poisoned with fentanyl and that he did not die naturally or from unknown causes, as articles at the time suggested, or as the coroner concluded.

Don’t touch the family

Silva organized the murder of kingpin Ducarme Joseph in 2014 – the contract was for $250,000 – and says he became a member of the Rizzuto family the next day.

Joseph, who was feared by the Rizzutos according to Silva, was suspected of having been involved in the murder of Nick Rizzuto, Vito Rizzuto’s eldest son, committed in December 2009.

Silva describes the former godfather’s other son, Leonardo, as “the flag, the prince and the bank” of the Sicilian clan.

In 2022, Silva said that the Montreal mafia no longer appointed “men of honor” and that the war between Sicilians and Calabrians was still not over.

Frédérick Silva summarized the impact of certain settling of scores in the criminal world as follows:

“It’s a form of respect in the street to show that if you touch the family, one day or another, you will pay with your life. It shows that even if it takes years, you will still die when you touch the family. »

“It’s very, very rare that you’re going to get out of this,” he predicted.

With the collaboration of Vincent Larouche, The Press

To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.