Gold smuggling the subject of a new book from Timmins, Ont. author Kevin Vincent | CBC News
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In the late 1940s a mine mill worker named Eddie Clement figured out a way to steal gold from the Delnite Mine in Timmins, Ont.
The next decade he orchestrated three major gold heists, and was never caught.
Clement’s early years as a gold thief are the subject of a short story in a new book called City of Thieves, from Timmins author Kevin Vincent.
Vincent interviewed Clement in the early 1990s, before he died, and held on to that story for all these years.
His new book features nine other true stories about organized crime and gold thefts in northern Ontario.
“There are thousands and thousands of these stories out there,” Vincent said.
“So I just kind of made it my life’s mission to dig into this as deep as I possibly could.”
Another prominent figure in his stories is organized crime boss Rocco Perri, who was sometimes referred to as “Canada’s Al Capone.”
Although Perri was from Hamilton, Vincent said he was “deeply and intimately tied into the gold smuggling world of northern Ontario and northern Quebec.”
While Vincent says all the stories in his book are true, in most he has changed characters’ names out of respect for their living family members.
“It turns out that just about everybody in this city was looking to get rich from gold,” he said.
Vincent said he has enough stories about gold smuggling to write several sequels. His next book will be called City of More Thieves.
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