Jimmy Bégin, 37, had only been on the job for two weeks with Taxi Val d'Or when he was shot to death. Local residents noticed the taxi parked on 12th Avenue, Val d'Or, at about 1 a.m. on Wednesday, December 30, 2009. The cab had its roof light on, but it was assumed the driver was waiting for a passenger. It wasn't until 3:15 a.m. that Mr. Bégin's body was discovered and the police notified. The left side of the taxi was jammed against a snowbank and the window of the left rear door was shattered. Mr. Bégin had been shot several times. In the two weeks that he drove taxi, Mr. Bégin was shocked by what he learned about the involvement of local taxi drivers in the Val d'Or drug trafficking and bootlegging milieu. About 9:30 p.m. on the night of his death, Mr. Bégin told his mother, "Mom, I don't like this. I want to quit." He said drivers were often called on to deliver mysterious little packages and some drivers kept liquor in their cars for after-hours resale. He also told his sister that he didn't like what he was seeing. The manager of Taxi Val d'Or admitted that some drivers were involved in drug deliveries, bootlegging and prostitution, but claimed it was the same in other places. "Can you think of taxi drivers who don't do that?" he asked. Mr. Bégin may have been frightened by the level of violence in the Val d'Or underworld. The town was a major focus of a police operation against the Bandidos motorcycle gang in 2002. Several of the 62 gang members sent to prison were arrested in Val d'Or. Since then there was a string of high-profile killings in the area which police were actively investigating.

Jimmy Bégin. (Source: Fédération Québécoise des Sociétés de Généalogie) The manager of Val d'Or Taxi suggested that Mr. Bégin may have been targeted in mistake for someone else. His murder recalled the death of another Val d'Or taxi driver, Marc Gauthier, in 2002. Twelve years later the Gauthier case was still open and still unsolved.