Frédérick Silva

A freelance hitman who killed for the Mafia, the Hells Angels, and street gangs alike — without belonging to any of them — Frédérick Silva ordered a $100,000 contract on the reporter covering his own murder trial, then quietly cancelled it. Three years later, from behind bars, his cooperation triggered the largest blow to Montreal’s Italian Mafia in a decade.

Frédérick Silva.

Identity

Frédérick Silva was born around 1980 and operated in and around Montreal. Police and court records describe him as a “freelance” contract killer — a description retired SPVM detective Pietro Poletti called unusual for Quebec’s organized-crime landscape: “In the past, you wouldn’t have seen that. With the Italian organized crime or the bikers, they wouldn’t outsource.” Rather than belonging to one organization, Silva is reported to have carried out killings on contract for multiple groups, including figures tied to Montreal’s traditional Italian Mafia, the Hells Angels, and street gangs.

The NDG Strip Club Killing — May 24, 2017

Silva’s first publicly attributed killing happened outside Cabaret Les Amazones, a strip club in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. According to the RCMP’s account, a man in Silva’s company touched a victim’s spouse inside the club; a fight broke out, and the group was thrown out. Silva is alleged to have followed the man into the parking lot and shot him from behind. It was Montreal’s tenth homicide of the year. Police did not publicly identify the victim for some time; he was later named in court filings as Daniel Armando Somoza-Gildea, a Concordia University student, and the charge was laid as second-degree murder.

Lachenaie — February 21, 2017

Three months earlier, police allege Silva had already tried to kill someone else. On February 21, 2017, they say he entered a restaurant in Lachenaie, a Terrebonne neighbourhood northeast of Montreal, accompanied by ten other people. He is alleged to have approached a 47-year-old man connected to organized crime and opened fire. The victim fled into the parking lot with Silva in pursuit; he survived, and Silva escaped in a red Range Rover. Police identified five of the ten people said to have been with him; five others were never identified.

On the Run, and Two More Killings

Montreal police issued a Canada-wide warrant for Silva in June 2017 over the NDG killing. He evaded it for almost two years — and, prosecutors would later allege, kept killing while he did. On October 11, 2018, Alessandro Vinci, 31, was shot dead in Laval; the charge was first-degree murder. On December 20, 2018, Sébastien Beauchamp — a former member of a Hells Angels support club — was shot in Montreal’s Saint-Léonard borough; that charge was first-degree murder as well. By the time he was finally arrested, Silva was the subject of three separate Canada-wide warrants and sat on Quebec’s list of ten most-wanted crime suspects.

Court Proceedings, 2021–2022

Silva was tried by a judge alone, without a jury, on four of the five counts against him. On November 16, 2021, he formally recognized through a nolo contendere proceeding that the Crown could prove every element of each offence. He was convicted on all four counts on January 27, 2022. The fifth and final count — a second-degree murder charge — was set to go before a jury in May 2022; instead, on May 6, 2022, Silva filed a nolo contendere proceeding on that count too, and the jury trial was cancelled. Publication bans were placed on the judgments in his case; La Presse later challenged those bans in court and was unsuccessful, with the Superior Court dismissing the motion on March 11, 2022. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Contract on the Reporter Covering His Trial

In 2021, while his trial was still underway and being covered by La Presse investigative reporter Daniel Renaud, Silva ordered a $100,000 contract to have Renaud killed. According to La Presse’s later reporting, the plan involved luring the reporter into a trap. The bounty stayed active for roughly two months before Silva called it off himself — La Presse reported he cancelled it to focus on “more important issues.” The plot stayed secret for years. It only became public in late November 2024, when Silva — by then a cooperating informant — confessed to it as part of his statements to investigators. The revelation reached Quebec’s political and journalism communities immediately, raising fresh questions about protection for reporters who cover organized crime. Renaud himself would go on to be one of the reporters covering the very investigation Silva’s cooperation eventually produced.

Turning Informant, 2022

After his conviction, Silva began cooperating with Quebec and Montreal police. Exactly what motivated the shift is not part of the public record reviewed here; what is documented is the scale of what his cooperation ultimately produced. His statements are reported to have detailed meetings, phone calls, money flows, targets, contracts, and safehouses, connecting the traditional Italian Mafia, the Hells Angels, and Montreal street gangs across a criminal window investigators would date to 2011–2021.

Project Alliance — June 12, 2025

Silva’s information became the foundation of Project Alliance, a three-year SPVM and Sûreté du Québec investigation into Montreal’s Italian Mafia. On June 12, 2025, roughly 150 officers executed a coordinated sweep across Quebec — Montreal, Laval, Blainville, Shefford, Saint-Lazare, Repentigny, Quebec City, and Rosemère — that police called the most significant organized-crime operation in the province in a decade.

Tiberio’s file connects directly to work Gangland Files has already covered: after this June 2025 arrest, he failed to appear and the Sûreté du Québec reissued a Canada-wide wanted notice for him fourteen months later. Gangland Files’ August 2026 coverage of that reissued notice is here.

Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel called the operation proof that pressure on organized crime “has impact.” All of those charged have pleaded not guilty, and their cases remain before Montreal’s courts.

Where This Leaves the File

Silva remains in custody, serving the life sentence imposed in 2022, and continues to be described in court and police material as an active informant. No public reporting reviewed here indicates his cooperation has concluded, or what, if anything, he has received in exchange for it beyond what is described above. The Project Alliance prosecutions — including Leonardo Rizzuto’s — are ongoing, and this profile treats every charge arising from them as untested unless and until a court says otherwise.