“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Canadian gangster.”

That sounds like the opening line to some alternative universe version of 1990’s GoodFellas, starring Enrico Colantoni and Nick Mancuso, that examines the lives of wiseguys who despise their country’s strict gun laws, embrace its universal health care and are incredibly polite despite being cold-blooded killers.

Warner Bros/giphy.com

Of course, that’s just playing into Canadian stereotypes. The reality is that organized crime has been almost as pervasive and profitable in the Great White North as it has in the US.

Reddit user nimobo recently posted a piece in the World News community about the possibility of a Toronto mob war between between families in ‘Ndrangheta, the mob organization that originated in Calabria. News of this friction broke after Italian prosecutors released information gathered from wiretaps during an investigation of wiseguys in that country, according to Canada.com.

Anywhere from seven to 10 families—or clans called ‘ndrina—have a stake in Toronto and the Ontario province. And that’s not including the presence of the Buffalo crime family in the area, as well as Quebec’s Rizzuto and Cotroni families—both branches of the Bonanno family, one of the Mafia’s fabled Five Families.

Since the days of bootlegging, Prohibition on both sides of the border, and Rocco Perri, “Canada’s Al Capone,” gangsters—whether whether they were part of La Cosa Nostra, Camora or homegrown groups—have felt right at home in Canada. Here’s a lineup of a few of Canada’s usual suspects.

1. John “Red” Hamilton

Hamilton wasn’t a member of a crime family in the traditional sense, but his close association with legendary bank robber John Dillinger and his gang made him one of Canadians most notorious gangsters. Throughout the 1930s, Hamilton and Dillinger, who met in an Indiana prison, left a trail of empty bank vaults and dead bodies across the Midwest. For a time, Dillinger and Hamilton held the Nos. 1 and 3 spots, respectively, on the FBI’s most wanted list (fellow gang member Harry Pierpont was No. 2 on the list), and Hamilton even made it to No. 1 briefly when Dillinger was incarcerated.

Hamilton, who also went by the name “Three Finger Jack” after losing digits in a childhood sledding accident, eventually died from wounds suffered during a 1934 shootout with the feds. Jason Clarke portrayed him in director Michael Mann’s Public Enemies.

Universal Pictures

2. Bindy Johal

YouTube/CBC

In his 20s, Johal helped create the Indo-Canadian Mafia, consolidating Indian gangs in British Columbia into a feared criminal empire in the 1990s. This immigrant from Punjab, India, also wasn’t shy when it came to talking shit about his enemies. Check out how he publicly badmouthed a fellow gangster he was later charged with (and then acquitted of) killing:

But like Bobby Baccalieri told Tony in The Sopranos about how things end for guys in organized crime: “Eighty percent of the time, it ends up in the can … or on the embalming table … Yeah, our line of work, it’s always out there. You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” In 1998, Johal was killed when he was shot behind the ear while dancing at a Vancouver club. He was 27.

3. Richard “Le Chat” Blass

Did Richard Blass end up like Bernie Blue in “Casino,” replacing Blue’s hero sandwich with a sock? (Universal Pictures)

This Montreal hitman for the West End Gang got his nickname—French for “cat”—because of his lucky ability to survive assassination attempts and shootouts, as well as escape the cops. Blass had a love-hate relationship with the New York wiseguys who were beginning to exert their control in his hometown in the 1960s. His Mafia animosity became so great that Blass and his gang began killing Italians—sometimes “connected” men, sometimes law-abiding citizens—on their own, a practice that made him a mob target.

In 1969, Blass was convicted and sentenced to four consecutive 10-year prison terms after a failed bank robbery that left a police officer dead. He broke out in October of 1974 and killed the two men who testified against him, then followed up that by killing the 13 people who witnessed those murders.

A massive manhunt led police to Blass, and he was killed in January of 1975 after being shot more than 20 times. It’s still in dispute whether Blass opened fire first or if he was unarmed, save for a sock in his hand.

4. “Dunie” and 5. “The Weasel”

In the 1960s, Frank “Dunie” Ryan was your average small-time, Canadian career criminal. But by the early 1970s—and after a six-year stint in the stir for armed robbery—he quickly became the head of Montreal’s West End Gang, creating an illegal drugs empire and becoming the self-proclaimed King of Montreal (without all the slick dance moves of Christopher Walken’s Frank White in King of New York).

New Line Cinema/giphy.com

In 1984, Ryan, however, was betrayed by members of his own gang who kidnapped him to find out where he stashed his around $50 to $100 million in ill-gotten gains. The “king” died from a shotgun wound when he tried to fight back.

That’s when Allan “The Weasel” Ross, Ryan’s right-hand man, stepped up. The Weasel not only avenged his close friend’s death, he also expanded the West End Gang’s narcotics business, and Ross became the fifth-biggest cocaine trafficker on the continent.

But US law enforcement caught up with Ross after a 1991 arrest at his Florida home (a $200,000 bribe to attempt to convince the cop to let him go didn’t work). He was convicted on drug and criminal conspiracy charges and sentenced to three concurrent life sentences. In 1997, another 30 years was added after being convicted in connection with the 1985 murder of one of the hitmen involved in the retaliation against Ryan’s killers.