Allan Ronald Ross

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. 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. Ross took charge of a drug smuggling network running from Florida to Quebec. 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. 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."

After a six-week trial in the spring of 1992, an American jury found Ross guilty of drug trafficking. The trial began on 6 April 1992 and one of those who testified against Ross was an American pilot, Bertram "Bert" Gordon, who testified that he had flown in shipments of cocaine from Canada into the United States in 1987 and 1988. During the trial, Ross was heard to say as he was being led out of the courtroom to a Montreal detective who had arrived to testify against him that "your new TV and VCR is on its way". An American court guard who heard the exchange reported it to the judge who summoned the detective to chambers to discuss what sounded like an offer of a bribe. The detective had to explain that the remark was instead a threat as Ross was referring to the assassination of April in 1984 who had been killed by a bomb planted in his new TV which he had received alongside a free VCR. On 15 May 1992, a jury in Gainesville found Ross guilty of charges of conspiracy to traffic in a least 10,000 kilograms of cocaine plus more than 300 tons of marijuana from 1975 to 1989. The judge sentenced him to life imprisonment with no chance of parole plus fined him $10 million U.S. dollars.

In the meantime, the media had become curious about Leithman's murder, and started to probe the links between Savoie, Leithman and Ross. The fact that the American police agencies investigating Ross refused to share information with the Canadian police forces under the grounds that they suspected that there was a police "leak" became the source of some scandal in Canada. American law enforcement complained that whatever information that was shared with the RCMP always seemed to reach Ross. The Fifth Estate television show aired a segment about the connections between the three men. The scandal ended with Savoie killing himself.

In 1993, Ross was convicted of another set of drug charges together with the murder of Singer. During the trial, it was revealed that Ross had offered the Hells Angels $13,000 for killing Quitoni. On 29 October 1993, Ross was found guilty of first-degree murder. In the 1993 case, the judge sentenced Ross to 30 years in prison atop of his life sentence. About his conviction, Ross was quoted as saying: "They can ship my body to Florida to start the last 30 years." Ross was replaced as boss of the West End Gang by Gerald Matticks.

In May 2009, Ross asked for the fine to be waived under the grounds that he had colon cancer. In a letter, Ross stated he had not been able to work within the prison for the last twelve years because of his poor health, while his wife and mother were paying the fine. He wrote: "In the last few years it has been a hardship on my family and myself. My wife is 64 years old and due to health problems, now only works part time. My mom is 86 years old and just had a knee replacement, she lives on her old age pension... I can no longer impose upon my family in these difficult times". The judge refused his request. In February 2017, he appealed in court for an early release on the grounds that he was dying of colon cancer, which a judge refused. Ross died in the Federal Medical Center, Butner in North Carolina of complications from colon cancer.

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