New Kings of Coke docs explore Montreal's underworld in macro and micro
Two-part documentary series returns to the West End Gang story, diving into a billion-dollar port operation and a legendary bank robber's vanishing act.
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Montreal's crime history is getting a fresh look. The acclaimed Kings of Coke documentary franchise returns this month with two new chapters exploring the city's underworld from opposing angles.
Kings of Coke: New Blood, premiering June 12 on Crave, follows Gerry "Beef" Matticks, a covert operator who seized control of the Port of Montreal in the 1990s and turned it into a billion-dollar drug gateway. Rather than align with any single faction, Matticks played the Hells Angels and the Italian mafia against each other while collecting from both sides—until the empire fractured and violence erupted.
A week later, June 19 brings Kings of Coke: The Legend of Rory Shayne, a deep dive into one of Canada's most chaotic criminal careers. Shayne, born in Germany and brought to Canada as a child, robbed banks using a hijacked helicopter, broke out of prison more than once, and held his own courtroom hostage with a converted starter pistol. Convicted and deported to Germany in the mid-1980s, he vanished. The documentary pursues a 30-year mystery: what actually happened to him?
Both series were produced by C3 Media and URBANIA, the Montreal-based team behind the original Kings of Coke. Director Nick Rose called the double release "a macro and micro view on crime"—one examining how criminal empires shift during the 1990s Biker War, the other examining the psyche of one eccentric individual.
For viewers interested in Montreal's underworld, these documentaries offer rare access to former investigators, gang associates, and hostages who survived Shayne's crimes.