MONTREAL — The terrifying attacks on Montreal cafés, bars and restaurants in the past month already total nine and speculation as to who is responsible continues to mount.
Police and experts speculate that the string of Molotov cocktail bombings could be driven by copycat arsonists or a mafia turf battle. Although, according to one expert on mob crime, the latter is unlikely. “The Montreal underworld is a bit in disarray,” Pierre de Champlain, a former intelligence analyst with the RCMP’s criminal intelligence bureau, is quoted as saying in the National Post. “If there was a dominant criminal organization, as there was until recently in Montreal, it’s sure this type of thing would not last long.
“The Mafia is very structured, very disciplined. [The Mafia] would think two or three times before they would do something like this.”
Of course, there are a handful of other theories. According to The Globe and Mail, there have been past reports of mafia members intimidating café owners into buying product from a “mob-approved distributor.”
Regardless of the origin of the attacks, the recent events have the entire city on edge.
