To say Montreal has a shady past would be a bit of an understatement.
The city, once home to a booming red light district and bustling underground crime operation, was also considered the “bank robbery capital of North America” for a large chunk of the 20th century.
That reputation is well-documented at this point, largely thanks to Kings of Coke,, the acclaimed 2022 Crave documentary that traced the rise of the West End Gang from a loose crew of bank robbers into one of the world’s most prolific cocaine trafficking networks.
Now, the franchise is back with two new chapters, and if anything, the stories only get wilder from here.
Both new series — Kings of Coke: New Blood and The Legend of Rory Shayne — were produced by C3 Media and URBANIA, the same Montreal-based team behind the original, with directors Guillaume Fortin and Nick Rose at the helm.
“What’s cool about this double release is that we’re offering a macro and a micro view on crime,” Rose told MTL Blog. “In New Blood, we see the tectonic plates of crime shifting in real-time during the 90s Biker War. And in The Legend of Rory Shayne, we do a super deep dive into the psyche of one eccentric bank robber. It’s like looking at Montreal’s underworld through a telescope and a microscope at the same time.”
Kings of Coke: New Blood premieres June 12 and follows Gerry “Beef” Matticks, a covert operator who quietly seized control of the Port of Montreal and turned it into a billion-dollar drug gateway. Rather than align himself with any one faction, Matticks played the Hells Angels and the Italian mafia against each other while collecting from both sides.
As viewers will see, it worked, until it didn’t.
The two-episode series also covers the violent biker war that erupted as his empire began to fracture, and the money trail that ultimately exposed the whole operation from within.
A week later, on June 19, Kings of Coke: The Legend of Rory Shayne arrives and takes things in a different direction entirely.
Born in Germany and brought to Canada as a child, Shayne had a troubled upbringing that eventually gave way to one of the most chaotic criminal careers the country has ever seen. He robbed banks using a hijacked helicopter, broke out of prison more than once, and at one point held his own courtroom hostage — pointing a converted starter pistol at his lawyer before guards tackled him to the ground.
Eventually convicted and deported to Germany in the mid-1980s, Shayne simply vanished. Some say he died overseas. Others aren’t so sure. The documentary features rare access to former investigators, gang associates, and hostages who survived his most infamous standoff, all in pursuit of an answer to the question that has lingered for over 30 years: what actually happened to him?
“Pulling this story out of obscurity and onto the screen has been incredibly rewarding,” Rose, who directed the Shayne doc, said. “It took us in directions that we never expected, and I think it’s going to blow a lot of people’s minds when they find out what happened to Rory.”
Kings of Coke: New Blood premieres June 12 on Crave. Kings of Coke: The Legend of Rory Shayne follows on June 19.
