14 arrested as police hit Hells Angels across Canada

JOE FRIESEN

December 13, 2007

WINNIPEG -- The president of the Manitoba Hells Angels was among 14 men arrested in early morning raids across Canada yesterday as part of Operation Drill, an RCMP-Winnipeg Police action against organized crime.

Dale Donovan, 33, was arrested at the Hells Angels clubhouse in Winnipeg after police in tactical gear surrounded the riverbank home in the city's north end. Mr. Donovan is one of three full-patch members of the biker gang arrested yesterday. He is charged with instructing someone to commit an offence for a criminal organization, participating in a criminal organization, conspiring to traffic in drugs and possessing the proceeds of crime.

James Heickert, a member of the Hells Angels chapter in Oshawa, Ont., was one of three men charged with conspiracy to commit murder, although police would not say who the alleged targets were. Lester Robert Jones of the biker gang's Kelowna, B.C., chapter was charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine.

More than 250 officers across the West were involved in the mass takedown, police said. They seized 11 kilograms of cocaine, 2,000 tablets of methamphetamine, five machine pistols and three handguns, as well as vehicles, $70,000 in cash and other property. Arrest warrants were also issued for four other men yesterday, but police did not say whether they were apprehended.
Print Edition - Section Front

Section A Front Enlarge Image
More National Stories

* Better pilot training, runway safety zones urged
* Mounties brace for high-level shakeup
* Mulroney must explain cash payments, Tory MP says
* Nuclear fallout: Ottawa takes a tough line
* Chalk River was put through emergency drill
* Aqsa's slaying and the clash between religion and culture
* Go to the National section

The Globe and Mail

The Manitoba Integrated Organized Crime Task Force began the investigation in November, 2006, focusing on high-level members of organized-crime and drug-trafficking cells. Paid police agents are believed to have played a key role leading to yesterday's arrests.

"These kinds of arrests only come about through sustained undercover work, either through agents, turncoats, snitches or wiretaps," said investigative journalist Julian Sher, an expert on the Hells Angels and the author of Angels of Death.

"There is no way you penetrate into a group like the Hells Angels and make sustained arrests without some kind of inside knowledge. Every major successful arrest in Winnipeg or across the country has been as the result of informants or wiretaps. That's the only way it works."

He said yesterday's arrests will disrupt organized crime in Manitoba and send a message that the Hells Angels cannot act with impunity.

"It shows the Hells Angels are battered and bloodied and bruised after two years of sustained police arrests and targeted attacks on the Hells Angels in Winnipeg, in Vancouver, in Ontario and in Quebec," he said. "It's always important when you can arrest a full-patch member or when you can arrest a leader. Dale Donovan has been a veteran biker going back for years. He's still innocent until proven guilty, but if it's true he's the current president of the Hells Angels, what does it say about a club where the former president [Ernie Dew] is fighting serious cocaine charges and now the current president is facing serious charges?"

Among the others arrested yesterday were two men from the northern city of Thompson, Man. Dean Gurniak, 34, and Stanley Anthony Lucovic, 44, are charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to traffic in drugs.

A 23-year-old man from Minnesota, Benjamin James Hamlin, was charged with conspiracy to import firearms into Canada. Al Lebras, a Manitoba Hells Angels prospect, and Allen Raymond Morrison, a Manitoba Hells Angels hang-around, were also arrested yesterday.

All the accused are scheduled to appear in a Winnipeg court today

Hells killer could soon be on parole
Paul Cherry, The Gazette

SAINTE ANNE DES PLAINES - One of the worst killers in Canadian history saw his parole hearing postponed Tuesday morning because his plan for release was incomplete.

Yves Trudeau, 61, a former Hells Angel who admitted to committing or at least playing a role in 43 murders made an unexpectedly brief appearance before the National Parole Board. The hearing was held inside the Archambault Institution, a medium-security penitentiary in the lower Laurentians.

The once-murderous biker gang member appeared frail as prison guards brought him to the hearing room in a wheelchair. With his thin frame, greying hair and weak voice it is difficult to imagine Trudeau as the man once known by his Hells Angels nickname, Apache, and feared even by members of his own gang.
Email to a friendEmail to a friendPrinter friendlyPrinter friendly

Parole commissioner Michel Pallascio presided over the hearing which ended prematurely because the release plan Trudeau wanted to propose to the board was incomplete. Pallascio said a new hearing will be rescheduled within 60 days. A Gazette reporter was asked to leave the hearing room when elements of Trudeau's release plan were discussed.

His security as a former high-profile police informant is apparently still a concern for the provincial government as two Surete du Quebec officers attended the hearing.

In 1985, Trudeau decided to become a police informant after he learned he was supposed to have been killed along with five Hells Angels who were shot to death by fellow gang members in Lennoxville. Trudeau was in a detox centre in Oka in March 1985 and couldn't attend when members of the Hells Angel's Laval chapter were summoned to the Eastern Townships for what they were told was a meeting. Instead, they were ambushed by members of other Hells Angels chapters. The slaughter, known now as the Lennoxville Purge, was carried out because the Laval chapter was unruly and used cocaine the gang intended to sell for profit.

Trudeau was given a controversial informant contract that allowed him to plead guilty to 43 counts of manslaughter in 1986. He was sentenced to life but was eligible for parole seven years later. In exchange he supplied the police with information on several organized crime figures including members of the Hells Angel.

Trudeau was provided with a new identity when he was granted parole in 1994. He lived under the name Denis Cote and led a secret life for years until he was arrested in March 2004 for sexually assaulting a young boy. Trudeau pleaded guilty to the offence four months later and was sentenced to a 4-year prison term. While his is eligible for parole Trudeau is still serving a life sentence and can held behind bars until the National Parole Board determines he is ready.

'Going to be a war'

Canada - --U.S. gang eager to scoop up Hells-haters: Source --A U.S. biker gang seeking to gain ground in Canada has set its sights on recruiting Bandidos members across the country, a source told Sun Media.

The California-based Mongols Motorcycle Club has been trying to recruit Bandidos members in Canada over the past three months, said the source, a former Bandidos member.

As reported yesterday, the Bandidos organization, a Texas-based biker gang with worldwide membership, claims on its official Canadian website that it no longer has any members in Canada.

Meanwhile, a Canadian flag is now featured on the Mongols' website along with messages on its guestbook from people claiming to be members of Red Power, one of the Bandidos support clubs in Manitoba.

In one of the messages posted on the guestbook, a user calling himself the Red Power president in "Peg city" welcomed the Mongols.

"Greetings from canada (sic) ... hope to see your club riding through out (sic) our regions ..."

Winnipeg police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Dennison said he's not aware of recruiting by the Mongols in Canada.

If the Mongols do intend to establish themselves in Canada, violence could break out with the rival Hells Angels motorcycle club, said the former Bandidos member.

"There's going to be a war for sure," he said.

Edward Winterhalder, a leading authority on biker clubs, said the Hells and Mongols generally don't get along.

"They don't associate," said Winterhalder. "And when they meet there's usually a fight, at least a fistfight."

Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos and author of a number of books on bikers, said the Mongols are among the top three or four biker groups in the U.S.

TENSE RELATIONSHIP

In 2002, a clash inside a busy casino in Laughlin, Nev., between the Mongols and Hells Angels left three gang members dead.

It wouldn't be surprising, said Winterhalder, if Bandidos members turned to the Mongols because the Canadian Bandidos chapter has had a tense relationship with its U.S. counterpart.

"The U.S. Bandidos leadership has failed to acknowledge that the Bandidos even exist in Canada," said Winterhalder.

Despite website claims the Bandidos in Canada were "shut down," sources told Sun Media last summer the club is in fact growing in Western Canada.

Ontario Provincial Police Det. Insp. Dan Redmond, who runs Ontario's provincial joint forces biker enforcement unit, would neither confirm nor deny the Bandidos still operate in Canada but said police aren't about to take the website's claim as gospel.

"We will remain vigilant in our mission, which is outlaw motorcycle gangs," said Redmond. "We are aware of the Bandidos website, the accuracy of which should be taken with a grain of salt."

Redmond said it would be "naive" of police not to recognize that Canada represents a potentially lucrative market for outlaw motorcycle gangs.

ROB NAY AND PAUL TURENNE
winnipegsun.com

Bandidos bikers bugger off

Hells Angels is the only stable motorcycle gang in Alberta

“Canada is red and white. It’s not just the Maple Leaf,” said investigative journalist Julian Sher, referring to the colours on the Hells Angels’ official emblem.

Sher’s declaration comes after the Bandidos – which suffered the massacre of eight gang members in Ontario in 2006 – said on their website that the club has ceased to exist. The announcement, while lacking proper grammar, reads: “There isn’t no more Bandidos MC (Motorcycle Club) membership in Canada.”

The news comes as a relief to Kyle Cardinal, whose brother Joseph Robert Campbell, a.k.a. Joey Morin, was gunned down along with his companion Robert Simpson outside an Edmonton strip club in 2004. Both men had links to the Bandidos. “If they’re going, good,” said Cardinal. “I hope they all fold up – Bandidos, Hells Angels. We don’t need them.”

The demise of the Bandidos strengthens the Hells Angels as the “only stable, enduring outlaw motorcycle gang in Alberta,” said Rick Bohachyk, the director of the Criminal Intelligence Service Alberta, an agency that works with other law-enforcement bodies to combat organized crime.

While the local Bandidos had patched over to the Hells Angels a few years ago, Bohachyk said there had been occasional rumours that the group was trying to rejuvenate in Alberta.

Experts say the latest move by the Bandidos likely won’t have an immediate effect on public safety in Edmonton since the group had been largely inactive here. In the long run, however, the gang’s closure may be positive “in the sense that a big move by the Bandidos to move into the Hells Angels’ territory would spell trouble,” said Sher, who co-authored a book on Canada’s most notorious biker group.

Sher added that the Bandidos, while often overshadowed by their more famous counterparts, were a more vicious gang than the Hells Angels. The Angels have some concern for their public image, but “the Bandidos don’t care,” he said.

The Bandidos’ closure follows months of speculation on their future after the April 2006 massacre of the eight gang members, an event police called an “internal cleansing” for the group.

Eight people are now being tried in the case, including Bandido member Wayne Kellestine.

Afterwards, a few experts predicted the Bandidos would rebuild, but Sher, who interviewed the group’s Texas-based international president Jeff Pike in 2006, said the killings were a fatal blow to the gang.

“When I spoke to him then, his displeasure at his Canadian franchise was quite apparent,” he said.

For Cardinal, while he’s glad to see the Bandidos fold, he still hasn’t gotten closure on his brother’s killing, which remains unsolved. “We’re just hoping down the road something (will come out),” he said. “But I doubt it.”

Sher, meanwhile, said that although the threat of biker-gang warfare is lessened without the Bandidos, people shouldn’t necessarily take comfort in the fact that the Hells Angels have now increased their influence over gang activity in Canada. “The scary thing is it makes the Hells Angels that much stronger,” he said.

glenn.kauth@sunmedia.ca

Cops on alert for Hells Angels gathering
UPDATED: 2007-07-19 17:00:02 MST


By DOUG MCINTYRE, SUN MEDIA

Hells Angels from across Canada are expected to roar into Calgary tomorrow, almost 10 years to the day since the outlaw biker gang first gained a foothold in the city.

City police and RCMP jointly announced the anticipated Hells Angels function today, but were otherwise tight-lipped about what, if any, measures law enforcement has in place to greet the bikers.

“There is a strategy in place and we’re going to go with a strategy that makes the city safe and makes this event go without any issues or concerns,” said CPS Insp. Luch Berti.

Berti added police don’t see the gathering as a threat to the public, although RCMP Cpl. Al Fraser said the advisory was issued due to the Angels’ alleged criminal element.

“The Hells Angels do have components of criminal membership and because of that, and because of any increase of potentially people on motorcycles driving through with colours, we thought it would be best to advise the public that this could be happening,” he said.

Cops didn’t disclose how many bikers are pegged to ride into Calgary, nor if surveillance is planned.

“It definitely would be a great opportunity to gather information but, again, it’s a tactical decision that will be made later,” said Berti.

Police aren’t planning Checkstops to greet the bikers, a tactic used in 1997 when 150 Hells Angels members rode into Red Deer to welcome the Grim Reapers after the latter switched allegiances in a patchover ceremony.

Fraser said it’s standard practice for city police and RCMP to team up for motorcycle gang gatherings, but declined to say if the mass meeting would require stepped-up patrols or extra cops.

“If there is a need for more officers or increased patrols, so be it ...we’ll make that decision on a case by case basis,” he said.

The Hells Angels first set up shop in Calgary in 1997 and controversy soon followed.

Former chapter president Kenneth Szczerba was arrested two years later for plotting to blow up the homes of Ald. Dale Hodges and Bowness community activist Morningstar Perdue.

Bandidos trial could leave London


Canada - One of the biggest criminal trials ever expected in London may never be heard here.

Lawyers for the eight defendants charged in the shooting deaths of eight Bandido bikers plan to ask that the case be moved out of the area.

Four defendants also want to quash a decision by the Ontario Court last month, after a preliminary hearing, to have each of them tried on eight counts of first-degree murder in the 2006 slayings.

A hearing on those applications won't be held until fall, and either side could appeal to Ontario's highest court.

It all means setting a trial date is a long way off for those charged in the deaths of the biker gang members and associates, whose bodies were found 15 months ago stuffed into vehicles in Elgin County.

"I sense that to have a trial on before the fall of 2008, I would be really surprised," said defence lawyer Tony Bryant, representing Marcelo Aravena, 31, of Winnipeg.

Yesterday in court in London, lawyers set a date for a judicial pre-trial with a Superior Court justice to discuss trial-fairness issues.

One issue to be addressed early is "changing the proceedings to another jurisdiction," Bryant said in court.

An application for a venue change can be made if it's believed an accused can't get a fair trial -- for example, because of pre-trial publicity that might affect a jury pool -- where the charge was laid.

If successful, the case would move to another community.

The case was officially moved yesterday from St. Thomas to London, where the three-month preliminary hearing was held in a high-tech, high-security courtroom.

In yesterday's hearing, Justice Lynne Leitch said Justice Dougald McDermid will conduct the pre-trial Aug. 28 and 29.

The next court date for the defendants is Oct. 10.

By then, the applications should be filed to appeal the preliminary hearing decision.

Leitch said she wouldn't schedule a date for the appeal until everything is filed.

Bryant has already filed for Aravena, who faces eight counts of first-degree murder.

Also charged with eight counts of first-degree murder are five others: Dwight Mushey, 39, and Michael Sandham, 37, both of Winnipeg; Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address; and Wayne Kellestine, 58, and Frank Mather, 33, both of Dutton-Dunwich.

Eric Niessen, 46, and Kerry Morris, 47, of Perth County, face charges of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and obstruction of justice.

By JANE SIMS
SUN MEDIA

Lawyers seek lesser charges in Bandidos trial


LONDON, Ont. - The eight people charged in the Bandidos massacre have been ordered to stand trial on all charges.

But several of their lawyers suggested Thursday they'll take the unusual step of seeking a review of the decision in order to reduce the charges.

Lawyers also cautioned the public not to read too much into the decision by Ontario Court Justice Ross Webster to order the men to trial in the biggest mass slaying in modern Ontario history.

"We are still in the initial stages and there is a lot more to come," said Ken McMillan, co-counsel with Clay Powell for Wayne Kellestine.

Webster, who heard the evidence at the three-month long preliminary hearing into the shooting deaths of eight Bandido motorcycle club members in Elgin county, announced his decision yesterday in London. "I am committing all accused on all charges before the court," Webster said while the eight people stood in the high-security, high-tech courtroom.

The decision paves the way for what could be one of the most explosive trials ever in the region.

Wayne Kellestine, 58, and Frank Mather, 33, both of Dutton/Dunwich, Brett Gardiner, 23, of no fixed address, Michael Sandham, 37, Marcelo Aravena, 31, and Dwight Mushey, 39, all of Winnipeg, face eight charges of first-degree murder.

Eric Niessen, 46, and Kerry Morris, 47, of the Monkton area in Perth County, each face a charge of accessory after the fact.

Webster also ordered a new charge each for Niessen and Morris -- obstruction of justice.

There is a ban on publication of evidence at the preliminary hearing, a court proceeding used to weigh evidence and determine if there is enough for the case to be heard by a jury.

But it could be some time before the case gets to trial.

Some lawyers are expected to ask the Superior Court to review Webster's decision.

"I suspect just about every person will be seeking with authorization to proceed with the review of this decision to seek if it is in fact legally on solid ground," said Anthony Bryant, lawyer for Aravena.

Webster's decision comes 14 months after the eight Bandidos were found shot to death and stuffed in abandoned vehicles on a quiet road near Shedden.

George Jessome, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga, were found dead on April 8.

The accused will be back in court July 11 to begin setting trial dates.

N/A
www.stthomastimesjournal.com

Biker hearing nears its end

LONDON, Ont. -- Four months after it started, the final leg of a preliminary hearing into the biggest mass slaying in modern Ontario history begins today.

Eight people are charged in connection with the deaths of eight Bandidos bikers whose bodies were found 13 months ago on a quiet rural road near Shedden.

Final defence and Crown arguments will be heard by Ontario Court Justice Ross Webster, who will decide if there is sufficient evidence for the case to move to trial.

The hearing, which is protected by a publication ban, began Jan. 9 and has been conducted under tight security on the 14th floor of the London courthouse.

Six men are charged with eight counts of first-degree murder: Wayne Kellestine, 57, of Dutton-Dunwich, Michael Sandham, 38, of Winnipeg, Dwight Mushey, 39, of Winnipeg, Frank Mather, 33, of Dutton-Dunwich, Marcelo Aravena, 30, of Winnipeg, and Brett Gardiner, 22, of no fixed address.

Revive your wardrobe

Eric Niessen, 45, and Kerry Morris, 47, are charged with being accessories after the fact

Vancouver Hells Angel convicted of drug trafficking


Canada - A full-patch member of the Hells Angels was found guilty of trafficking today, while an associate of the biker gang was acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court. Justice Victor Curtis said Ronaldo Lising ordered a kilogram of methamphetamine from an RCMP undercover agent in August 2004 and made sure the kilo was delivered to his brother's Champlain Mall deli.

"Those circumstances in my opinion clearly prove the necessary elements of knowledge and congtrol," Curtis said in his written reasons for the ruling.

But he announced in courtroom 55 as Lising sat in the prisoners' dock that the guilty verdict would not be entered until after his lawyer Greg DelBigio has argued a second constitutional challenge in the case. That case will be heard in May. Curtis also acquitted Nima Ghavami of trafficking.

Ghavami had been a friend of police agent Michael Plante as the million-dollar operative collected evidence for the RCMP against senior members of the Hells Angels and their associates.

During the four-week trial Plante testified that at one point his supplier had delivered a package of meth to Ghavami's apartment even though Plante had not asked him to do so.

Curtis said no evidence was presented indicating that Ghavami knew what was in the package. Ghavami was taped telling Plante he had repackaged the substance for him, though he does not refer to it as meth.

"In my opinion it is reasonably possible in such circumstances that Mr. Ghavami believed the substance to be something other than a controlled substance," Curtis said. "He could, for instance, have repacked it because it was a dry powder in a plastic bag which was liable to break and spill, rather than because he was trying to hide its identity."

Both men were arrested and charged as part of a massive RCMP undercover operation dubbed E-Pandora, in which Plante infiltrated the East End Chapter of the notorious biker gang.

Eighteen people were charged, including six full-patch members, and several trials are still pending, including a second one involving Ghavami, who remains under house arrest and is attending night school.

17/4 Cops assaulted at strip club
An arrest warrant has been issued for a man with a record of shooting a rival biker.
By JOE MATYAS, SUN MEDIA


A London man with ties to the Outlaws motorcycle club is wanted on an arrest warrant after two London police officers were assaulted early yesterday at a downtown strip club.

Marcus Cornelisse, 32, is wanted on three counts of assaulting police.

Cornelisse pleaded guilty to shooting a rival biker near the Outlaws clubhouse in London six years ago.

He is considered "dangerous," Const. Darrin Brown said yesterday.

Two uniformed officers were conducting a criminal investigation at Solid Gold's, a strip bar at the corner of Dundas and Clarence streets, at about 1:15 a.m. yesterday.

The officers were speaking to a male staff member when the man punched one of the officers in the head and turned on the other officer, also striking him in the head.

When the second officer fell to the floor, the man kicked him in the head and in the back several times, police said.

The man ran out of the bar with the officers giving chase, police said.

The man then hit one of the officers again in the back of the head, police said.

"There were assaults inside the club and another one outside," Brown said.

The man escaped by running back into Solid Gold's and somehow finding his way out, police said.

Both officers were treated at Victoria Hospital for injuries and released, Brown said.

Police issued an arrest warrant for Cornelisse later in the day.

A former University of Western Ontario kinesiology student, Cornelisse pleaded guilty in October 2003 to two charges, including aggravated assault, for shooting a rival biker.

Eric Davignon and three other members of a puppet club of the rival Hells Angels raided a home next to the Outlaws club house on Egerton Street in January 2001, according to facts read into the court record.

The bikers wanted to talk to Cornelisse, but he fired a gun through his apartment door, shooting Davignon in the abdomen.

Cornelisse disappeared. He turned up the next year in Michigan where he was serving a 10-month sentence for assault.

He was sentenced to two years in jail.

Bikers' freedom within sight
Parole board imposes conditions. Statutory release dates loom
PAUL CHERRY, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, April 14, 2007

Two major figures from opposite sides of Quebec's biker gang war are scheduled to be released from federal penitentiaries soon.

Giovanni Cazzetta, 51, a founding member of the Rock Machine, and Gaetan Comeau, 59, a longtime member of the Hells Angels, are about to reach the two-thirds mark of their lengthy prison sentences.

Inmates who have not previously been paroled automatically qualify for statutory release after serving two-thirds of a sentence.


But in both cases, the National Parole Board decided to impose special conditions on the notorious criminals.

The Rock Machine opposed the Hells Angels' goal of monopolizing the drug-trafficking turf in eastern Montreal. The conflict touched off a war that lasted seven years, during which more than 160 people were killed, including several innocent victims.

Cazzetta is serving a combined sentence of more than 18 years for a series of offences, most of them drug-related. In 1998, he was handed a nine-year term for drug trafficking, attached to a four-year sentence he had begun in 1994. In 1999, he was sentenced to five years for being in possession of property obtained through the proceeds of crime. His full sentence is to end in April 2012.

For the next five years, Cazzetta will not be allowed to frequent bars and he is not allowed to own a pager or a cellphone. He also has to submit a monthly report on his personal finances to a parole officer. As well, he is not allowed to associate with people who have criminal records or ties to organized crime.

It is unclear in the written summary of the parole board's recent decision whether Cazzetta's brother, Salvatore, is included among the people with whom he can't associate. Salvatore Cazzetta, also a founding member of the Rock Machine, is now a member of the Hells Angels.

Comeau, a longtime member of the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter, is required to live under similar conditions when he is released in a few weeks. He informed the parole board he is counting on $18,000 from the sale of his motorcycle to help make ends meet after he's freed.

Comeau renounced his right to a parole hearing and appeared content to wait for his statutory release date.

While serving his time in a medium-security penitentiary, Comeau was identified as being part of a group of Hells Angels who used intimidation to control which inmates could make telephone calls. He was also suspected of using an underling to sell drugs to other prisoners.

Comeau is serving a 62-month sentence he received in 2003 for his role as leader of a drug trafficking ring. While he was not among those arrested in Operation Springtime 2001, the police roundup that netted the Hells Angels elite Nomads chapter, his name came up often during the megatrials that followed.

Police sources also have said Comeau was a suspect in a 1995 car bombing that killed Daniel Desrochers, 11. The boy was riding his bicycle in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve when he was hit by shrapnel from the blast. It is believed the bomb was set off by the Hells Angels and the intended target was a man who had attended a meeting where rival drug dealers plotted to kill Maurice (Mom) Boucher, president of the Nomads chapter.

No charges have ever been laid in the boy's death.

Rural quiet restored after slaying spotlight


Sun, April 8, 2007


By KELLY PEDRO, SUN MEDIA - London Press


SHEDDEN -- A year ago today, the grisly discovery of eight bodies stuffed into vehicles thrust a rural area here into the national spotlight.
Police descended, then the news media, then the curious.

The slayings of eight Bandidos bikers and associates, the worst massacre in modern Ontario history, kept Shedden, southwest of London in rural Elgin County, on the map for weeks.

But on the anniversary of the slayings, as the charges against eight accused end their first phase in court, the events of a year ago are all but forgotten along the gravel Stafford Line where the bodies were found.

A memorial with eight small crosses, two photos of happier family times, two bouquets of flowers, a planted tree and an Italian flag, recall the Bandidos bikers and associates who were found shot to death.

Little else marks the tumult of last April 8 -- and residents are happy to keep it that way.

"As far as we're concerned, it's done. It's in the past. It's just a dirt road," said a woman who works at the Shedden grocery store, Palmer's Supermarket.

Gone is the onslaught of traffic that descended a year ago after the OPP found the bodies on a Stafford Line property belonging to Russ and Mary Steele, prompting hordes of media to invade the area.

Slain were George Jesso, 52, of Toronto; George Kriarakis, 28, of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, of Etobicoke; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga.

Eight people have been charged, including six facing eight counts of first-degree murder: Dwight Mushey, 38, of Winnipeg; Frank Mather, 32, of Dutton-Dunwich; Wayne Kellestine, 57, of Dutton-Dunwich; Marcelo Aravena, 30, of Winnipeg; Michael Sandham, 36 of Winnipeg; and Brett Gardiner, 22, of no fixed address.

Two others are charged as accessories after the fact.

A three-month preliminary hearing into the charges is all but complete, with all the evidence against the defendants concluded last week.

The case returns to court in London May 8.

In recent months, traffic on this gravel road about five kilometres north of Shedden has returned to normal. No one has stopped at Palmer's to ask for directions.

"A little while ago, someone was out asking questions, but that was it," said the store employee, who didn't want to be identified and didn't want to answer any more questions.

The Steeles were alerted April 8, 2006, by a neighbour who'd seen four vehicles, including a tow truck, parked on their property. They called the OPP who found the bodies.

Mary Steele declined an interview request, but said the area has returned to normal.

The Bandidos likely won't officially mark the anniversary of the massacre, said Ed Winterhalder, author of Out in Bad Standings, a book about his life in the biker gang.

"They won't do anything. They might sit around and talk about it the next few days, but they won't do anything official," he said.

On the Bandidos Canadian website, messages about the anniversary have been posted.

"Respects to the No Surrender Crew for hanging tough through everything happening in the last year. Miss u always Big Paulie and Jamie," read one posting dated March 21
 

Club rules: No wives and no murders
Saul Porto, Reuters

Police officers place a sign on the Hells Angels clubhouse on Eastern Ave. in Toronto. The building has been seized by the government under anti-racketeering legislation.
Click here to find out more!
Biker clubhouses all alike, says former hitman. You feel 'powerful' when you are first invited inside
By Tracy Huffman and Peter Edwards
Toronto Star
(Apr 5, 2007)

When police raided the largest Hells Angels clubhouse in the country yesterday, members of the biker gang were apparently unaware that they had been tenants of the federal government for three weeks.

"They definitely didn't know we had seized it. They did not know we were coming," a source close to the investigation said of the Eastern Ave. clubhouse, a social hub for bikers for almost 30 years.

And, for the last three weeks, it was apparently business as usual for the estimated 220 members associated with that chapter who gathered to watch sports on the big screen television, drink beer at the second-floor bar or play cards in the game room.

On March 14, a London, Ont. judge issued a court order to seize and transfer 498 Eastern Ave., as well as two private residences to the Attorney General of Canada, on the basis that they were proceeds of crime under new anti-racketeering legislation.

"We have exclusive possession of the clubhouse," said OPP Detective Inspector Dan Redmond, who heads up the province's biker enforcement unit.

Yesterday, in a series of early morning raids across the province and in British Columbia and New Brunswick, police arrested dozens of Hells Angels full-patch members and associates. Details of their charges have not been released.

Throughout the day, police worked behind the clubhouse steel door, gathering evidence and taking photographs of what those who have been in biker clubs describe as typical.

There's a fridge well stocked with beer, a bar, a meeting room, and a room with a big screen television for watching sports.

There's a party room and bedrooms for when women working for escort agencies come to party with them.

There's also a strict understanding at all biker clubhouses that you don't bring your wife, and you don't commit murders on the property, said former biker hitman Gilles (Kid) Lalonde.

Wives tend to wreck the atmosphere, especially when there are escort women on site, while murders can leave messy evidence.

"No wives and no murders," Lalonde said. "Those are the two rules."

Art Phillips, who has owned the plumbing business next door since 1941, said he can't say a bad word about his neighbours.

"They've never been a problem. They are like a watchdog for the area. They have (security) cameras and they keep an eye on people coming and going," Phillips said. "There's never been anything confrontational."

In fact, he coached some of its members in hockey years ago, he said, and he's often been called on to fix plumbing problems. "They've always paid well," he said.

His neighbours always say hello and have even moved Phillips' car to save him a ticket.

Other neighbours said the building is maintained with members planting flowers in the boxes in the spring, decorating with lights at Christmas and handing out candy at Halloween.

Perhaps the strongest memory lawyer Harry Kopyto has of the Eastern Ave. clubhouse is a photo under the phone on the wall.

"I saw a picture of a rat with a knife through his body underneath the telephone," said the since-disbarred lawyer yesterday.

When Kopyto visited the cinder-block bunker, it belonged to the ParaDice Riders, one of the local clubs that folded into the Hells Angels in December 2000.

"It was immaculate, very clean, gleaming," Kopyto recalled. "It was like a well-appointed den."

Lalonde said in a telephone interview that he has been in plenty of biker clubhouses, and they're all pretty much the same with a bar, television room and party room.

There's a place for bikers from other club chapters to visit, but there's no place for entertaining spouses, Lalonde said. "No wives, for sure."

There's also a strict understanding that whatever happens in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse.

"It's pretty much the same everywhere," said Lalonde, who belonged to the Dark Circle, a group of hitmen connected to the Alliance, a group of independent drug dealers who were at war with the Hells Angels in Quebec in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Lalonde, who's now in a witness protection program, said he shot -- but didn't kill -- two Angels, and had plans to kill a couple more before he began to co-operate with police.

He said some clubhouses have computers, and one had a "Canada's Most Wanted List," of people the club wanted killed.

There's precious little art in clubhouses.

"I would say that they were artistically committed to minimalism," Kopyto said. "There was nothing to distract your attention."

There's also little to read beyond Playboy, Penthouse and perhaps a daily newspaper.

Clubhouses are invariably clean, kept that way by prospects for the club who hope to attain full member status.

While they're unremarkable buildings, Lalonde said he felt extremely powerful the day he was allowed inside a clubhouse for the first time.

"I thought I was getting close to the big boys. When they let you in, you know you're part of the group."

He said he's sure the Hells Angels will quickly build new clubhouses, and have no problem filling them.

"It's intimidation," Lalonde said. "Everybody knows the Hells Angels are there ... They're going to get a new bunker and roll and roll and roll. It'll never end."

Six sentenced for roles in coke trafficking plot

Canada - Lined up behind the glass wall of the prisoner's box yesterday, the ringleader of a major drug trafficking network north of Montreal and some of his accomplices looked like naughty schoolboys waiting outside the principal's office.

But their detentions, after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy, drug-trafficking and gangsterism, will last as long as nine years for their roles in the network, in which vast quantities of cocaine were flown in from Vancouver to be sold in municipalities stretching from St. Jerome to Joliette.

Altogether, 23 people were arrested last year during what the SQ dubbed Operation Piranha.

On March 13, 2006, police also seized 49 kilograms of cocaine and smaller quantities of hashish and marijuana. They found at least 136,000 Viagra pills.

Most of the people arrested have chosen to go to trial, starting May 31.

But yesterday, the leader of the group, Louis-Alain Dauphin, 54, of Mirabel, pleaded guilty. He was given a nine-year sentence - the equivalent of two years time served since his arrest, 41/2 years for conspiracy and trafficking, plus 21/2 years for gangsterism. The latter terms are to be served consecutively.

The court heard how Dauphin orchestrated the transport of 50 kilograms of cocaine from Vancouver.

The drugs were then hidden in two locations in Montreal.

Also appearing yesterday was Michael Russell, 61, a pilot from Toronto who was arrested in Vancouver last year. He was accused of flying a private plane with the drugs stashed on board into St. Hubert airport, on the South Shore. He is to be back in court May 31.

Then there was Hells Angels member Salvatore Brunetti, on trial for gangsterism for a second time.

Arrested during the roundup of bikers known as Operation Springtime 2001, Brunetti was in jail until 2004. At that point he was approached by Dauphin to help deal with "territorial" issues - helping the drug operation's salesmen establish their turf.

At first he refused, in compliance with his parole conditions, but later accepted the new job, the court heard.

Brunetti, 55, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to four years, minus two years time served.

Finally, at the lower echelons of the organization, were Jacques Lapointe, who was given 18 months in prison for selling drugs from his workplace; Jacques Guilbault, who pleaded guilty to supplying special hard-to-tap cellphones to the organization and was sentenced to nine months; and Patrick Bourassa, boyfriend of one of the supplier's daughters, who helped with deliveries from time to time. He got two years less a day.

Outside the courtroom, crown prosecutor Madeleine Giauque, who oversaw the megatrial of nine Hells Angels for drug trafficking and gangsterism in 2003, said this trial is not over yet.

With six men pleading guilty yesterday and two men dead (of natural causes) since their arrests, Giauque has yet to prosecute another 13 men and two women, including Louis Pasquin, 47, a lawyer who represented Brunetti during his first gangsterism megatrial in 2002.

2 arrested and charged as HA gather in Nanaimo


Canada - Traffic stop after vehicle crossed double solid line.

Three Hells Angels from Edmonton were arrested as police scrutinized a weekend meeting of the bikers in Nanaimo.

Two of the three now face weapon and drug charges.

Apparently aware of a meeting of the West Coast officers of the club in the city, police began watching the movements of those involved.

About 5:45 p.m. on Saturday, Mounties with the outlaw motorcycle gang task force and the Nanaimo criminal intelligence section stopped a vehicle at a hotel on Nicol Street, after it crossed a double solid line illegally. A search of the vehicle uncovered a loaded handgun with the serial number filed off and a small amount of marijuana, police said.

"You can draw your own conclusions, but we don't think it's for a benevolent purpose," said Nanaimo RCMP spokeswoman Jen Allan of the seized gun.

"I was certainly not surprised that we found a loaded handgun," said Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of the outlaw motorcycle gang task force.

While the arrests do not indicate any larger criminal plot, Anderson said outlaw bikers are watched carefully. "I think it sends a message we are vigilant and we will deal with them in an appropriate manner when they are committing offences."
 

Informant Goes Undercover
MAR 07 2007 12:40 PM


A Hell's Angels jury trial in Winnipeg has heard an informant volunteered his services to become a police agent involved in a major undercover drug sting.

A RCMP Sergeant testified Franco Atanasovic offered to infiltrate the Hells Angels as a police agent in 2003. The Sergeant said he tried to talk Atanasovic out of the plan that will see the informant collect 525-thousand dollars for his undercover work and eventual testimony.

Atanasovic, a career criminal wore a wire tap as part of a police drug bust that saw 13 individuals including 3 Hells Angels arrested in February 2006. Hells Angel Ian Grant is on trial on drug and extortion charges for his alleged involvement. The trial is expected to last a couple of months.

CJOB's Jeff Keele reporting

Bandidos vow to stay


Winnipeg ,Canada - THE head of the Manitoba Bandidos launched into a profanity-laced tirade and vowed the notorious biker gang was here to stay -- moments after a jury found him and three associates guilty of kidnapping and torturing a rival drug dealer.

Friday afternoon's verdict could represent a crushing blow to the local chapter, as the men are facing lengthy prison sentences for their roles in the February 2005 attack. A fifth accused had previously pleaded guilty.

"The Bandidos aren't (expletive) going anywhere," gang leader Ron Burling shouted in court as he was led away in shackles by sheriff's officers.

"God forgives. The Bandidos doesn't."

Burling also directed his venom towards Crown attorney Daniel Chaput with a barely audible threat that is now being investigated by justice officials. Only the words "rape" and "girlfriend" could be clearly heard from the public gallery.

The five gang members -- Burling, Adam Curwin, Billy Joe Ducharme, Daniel Blair and Daniel Pereira -- have all been detained in custody and a sentencing date is expected to be set next week. Burling is currently serving a nine-year prison term for a violent home invasion in which he accidentally shot off his own toe.

Manitoba is one of only a few provinces in Canada with a full-time Bandidos presence. The gang's status took a major hit last year when eight Bandidos were executed in Ontario in what police called an "internal cleansing."

Five other Bandidos members and associates -- including three from Manitoba -- have been charged with the killings. A preliminary hearing is underway.

In Winnipeg, jurors began their deliberations on Thursday afternoon following one of the longest trials in recent memory. The case began in early January.

They found the accused guilty as charged of kidnapping, aggravated assault and extortion for their role in a disturbing attack on a 20-year-old man.

Jurors were told the victim owed Burling money as part of an outstanding drug debt. The man and his girlfriend were allegedly lured to an inner-city residence by a so-called "friend" who had been told of the pending attack by the accused.

Jason Michel, a former high-ranking biker associate who admits to participating in parts of the attack, was called as a Crown witness to detail the incident.

His evidence was considered crucial since the victim offered little during his testimony, claiming to have no memory of the incident or who was responsible. Michel told court the man and his girlfriend were run off the road and dragged from their vehicles into a nearby home by Burling's co-accused and another Crown witness.

They were separated and held in different parts of the house for several hours, with the man being severely beaten and forced to turn over money, he said. His injuries included fingers crushed with a sledgehammer and having a tattoo forcibly removed with a knife.

"He looked like a beach ball. His head was swollen. He was beat up," Michel testified earlier in the trial.

Michel's credibility was a hot issue for defence lawyers, as he admitted to having an extensive record for crimes including break-and-enter, assault, uttering threats and breach of court orders.

But jurors clearly believed his testimony

Revenue Quebec mortgages Mom Boucher's homes

Canada - While former Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher spends the rest of his days in a federal penitentiary for the murders of two prison guards, Revenue Quebec is trying to collect back taxes from the one-time gang boss.

Its latest move has been to slap mortgages on his two suburban properties.

The government is seeking $519,297.37 from Boucher, who during his heyday in the 1990s was arguably Quebec's most powerful underworld boss.

As head of the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter in Montreal, he oversaw a drug trafficking empire that grossed more than $100 million a year.

Now he's cooling his heels in the maximum security prison at Ste. Anne des Plaines, about 40 kilometres north of Montreal. Boucher will become eligible for parole in 2022, but it is unlikely he'll ever leave prison.

He was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder in the killings of two prison guards and of conspiring to murder a third.

Although government auditors calculate he earned more than $1 million a year peddling drugs, his declared earnings during the 1990s were a modest $41,000 a year. He claimed he was a used car salesman.

The government has also put liens on a mobile home and a 1935 vintage Oldsmobile.

The properties on which the government holds mortgages include a house in Contrecoeur, 50 kilometres northeast of Montreal, where Boucher lived with his wife, and a home in Boucherville, where his mistress lived.

By WILLIAM MARSDEN
The Gazette
 

Hells Angels charged in Surrey home invasions


Canada - Four people, including two senior members of the Hells Angels, have been charged with attacking a Surrey man in his home last month.

The victim suffered severe bruising to his head, arms and legs during the Jan. 17 home invasion, but the injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a criminal offence and assault with a weapon have been laid against 57-year-old Surrey resident Douglas "Doc" Riddoch, identified as the president of the Hells Angels White Rock chapter, the largest and oldest Hells Angels club in B.C. (Despite its name, the chapter actually operates from premises in Langley).

Also charged was 42-year-old Langely resident Villy Roy Lynnerup, a full patch member with the club.

Lynnerup made headlines last summer after he was charged with allegedly carrying a loaded gun through security at Vancouver International Airport. At the time, he was described as the club's sergeant-at-arms.

Last month, Lynnerup was arrested again, this time over allegations he threatened someone and smashed in a vehicle's windows in the Langley area.

He was charged with kidnapping, unlawful confinement, uttering threats and mischief in connection with the incidents.

The other two suspects charged in the Surrey incident are Scott William Schneider, a 28-year-old Surrey man and Walter Scott Berry, a 44-year-old Surrey resident.

A warrant has been issued for Berry's arrest, police said.

RCMP Inspector Gary Shinkaruk, head of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMG) Investigational Unit, said police are having more success bringing charges against outlaw bikers because witnesses are more willing to testify.

"People are starting to have some confidence that we can bring these guys to courts and we can keep the witnesses alive," Shinkaruk said.

"But we still have a long way to go."

By Dan Ferguson
the Surrey leader

Hells Angels members charged

Date Published | Feb. 8, 2007



Five people, including three members of the Sudbury chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club have been arrested and more than three kilograms of cocaine have been taken off the streets.

After 18 months of investigation, the RCMP, in partnership with Greater Sudbury Police and the OPP's biker enforcement unit, made the arrests Feb. 7.

Police seized approximately three kilograms of cocaine, four individually wrapped ounces of cocaine, three pounds of marijuana, 40 five-gram vials of hash oil, $27,000 cash, a pistol, a hand held cross-bow and a number of other items related to crime such as vehicles and Hells Angels paraphernalia.

Daniel Redmond, an OPP detective inspector, said he hopes these arrests put a dent in the Hells Angels operation in Greater Sudbury.

The following people have been charged with conspiracy to traffic:

- Hells Angels member Gilles Levac, 46, of Val Caron. Levac has also been charged with possession of a restricted weapon.

- Hells Angels member Alan Whittaker, 41, of Sudbury. He has also been charged with possession of a prohibited weapon.

- Hells Angels member Pietro Agricola, 43, of Skead.

- Wayne Stewart, 51, of Sudbury.

- Karrie Kotyluk, 24, of Sudbury.

- Phil Boudreault, 32, of Massey was not charged, but as a result of information obtained during the investigation, his parole has been suspended and he is back in custody.

 

Judge opens Bandidos search warrants to public

Canada - Parts of sealed search warrants in the Bandidos slayings investigation have been ordered open to public scrutiny.

In her decision released yesterday, Superior Court Justice Lynne Leitch sided with Sun Media, which includes The London Free Press, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who challenged the sealing of the warrants in what's believed to be Ontario's largest mass slaying last April.

"I found that the orders that are the subject of this application limited access and disclosure beyond what was justifiable," Leitch wrote.

The sealing orders and portions of the warrants will be made available provided no other orders are made by the court.

The sealing orders will be available in 10 days. Access to parts of the warrants will be available in 15 days.

Leitch's decision indicated the open parts of the warrants will include things to be searched for, and descriptions of the offences.

The searches involved Wayne Kellestine's Elgin County farm and addresses in Winnipeg.

They were subject to scrutiny following the discovery of eight slain Bandido bikers in vehicles parked haphazardly along Elgin County's Stafford Line on April 8.

Eight people were charged -- including Kellestine, 57.

The others include Michael Sandham, 35, a former police officer from Winnipeg, Brett Gardiner, 22, of no fixed address, Frank Mather, 32, of Dutton-Dunwich, Marcelo Aravena, 30, and Dwight Mushey, 39, both of Winnipeg.

They all face eight counts of first-degree murder.

Eric Niessen, 45, and Kerry Morris, 47, are charged with one count of accessory after the fact.

Their three-month preliminary hearing began this month. The evidence presented is subject to a publication ban.

At the time the warrants were issued on April 9 and June 8, they were sealed and the sealing orders were also sealed.

The media argued in October freedom of the press and expression were paramount. The Crown said opening the warrants would undermine the trial process.

JANE SIMS
London Free press

Kidnap, assault detailed
Crack-trade brutality

By DEAN PRITCHARD, COURT REPORTER

Tue, January 16, 2007


Jurors in the trial of five men accused of kidnapping a Winnipeg drug dealer were given a first-hand account yesterday of just how ruthless the city's crack trade can be.

Ron Burling, John Adam Curwin, Daniel Pereira, Billy Joe Ducharme and Daniel Blair were all charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault and extortion after a 20-year-old man was forced out of his car and beaten in a Toronto Street crack house.

"He was scared. He kept asking why this was happening to him," said Jason Michel, one of two witnesses arrested for kidnapping. Jurors heard Michel pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and, in exchange for his testimony, saw additional charges of kidnapping, extortion and aggravated assault stayed by the Crown.

DRUG DEBT

Michel told court the victim was kidnapped over a $6,000 drug debt he owed Burling, a member of the outlaw Bandido's biker gang. Michel, who called himself the president of the Bandido's puppet club, La Familia, said Burling called him to his Union Avenue home several hours before the abduction. He was joined a short time later by Curwin, Pereira, Ducharme and Blair.

Burling said "the victim took off with a bunch of money and that we were to snag him so we could talk about it," Michel told court. "Burling was pretty angry."

Michel, Curwin, Pereira, Ducharme and Blair drove to a Toronto Street crack house where they hatched a plan to lure the victim to the address.

The victim's car was ultimately forced into a snowbank. The victim and a female passenger were dragged to the crack house where they were placed in separate rooms.

Michel called Curwin who instructed him to head over to a St. Mary's Road address where he was expected to recover the stolen money. After being directed to a second address, Michel recovered about $1,000 in drugs and cash.

When Michel returned to the apartment several hours later, the victim had suffered a savage beating. "He looked like a beach ball, he was all puffed up," Michel said. "His finger was smashed, it was flat."

Cocaine rip-off a bad deal for seller, too
Sting sends Hells Angel to prison

Wed Jan 10 2007

By Mike McIntyre
A Manitoba Hells Angels member who tried to rip off his buddy by selling him a kilogram of severely diluted cocaine ended up being the victim of an even crueller joke.

The so-called "friend" was actually working for police and the drug deal had just been caught on camera.

"It was a classic double-cross," federal Crown attorney Chris Mainella told a Winnipeg court Tuesday.

Jeff Peck, 44, pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison under an agreement between Crown and defence lawyers.

He was also hit with a $35,000 fine that will be converted to an additional year behind bars if not paid.

Peck was one of 13 suspects arrested last February after an extensive undercover investigation by the RCMP and Winnipeg police.
Click here to find out more!
He is the seventh person to plead guilty, and the first of the three full-patch Hells Angels members. President Ernie Dew has a trial set for November, and Ian Grant will begin his hearing next month. Both men remain in custody.

The bulk of the Crown's case was built on the work of career-criminal-turned-police-agent Franco Atanasovic, who is being paid US$525,000 plus expenses for tasks that included doing 18 separate drug deals.

The one involving Peck went down in the parking lot of a Portage Avenue car wash in May 2005, court was told Tuesday.

Following earlier discussions outside a Winnipeg hockey arena and hardware store, Peck agreed to meet Atanasovic and swap a kilo of cocaine for $35,000 cash.

Atanasovic was given the money by police, who equipped him with a listening device and were watching the deal and filming it from a distance with video cameras.

Police were surprised at what they found once Atanasovic returned with the drugs.

"It was only 25 per cent pure. In fact, you couldn't dilute it any further. It was as low as you can go," Mainella told court Tuesday.

Peck has a lengthy criminal record that includes two drug-trafficking convictions. He has been involved in the Manitoba biker scene for two decades and joined the Hells Angels in 2002, court was told.
He was to stand trial later this month, but struck a last-minute deal under which he got a reduced sentence in exchange for his guilty plea.

Mainella said the move saves taxpayers "tens of thousands of dollars" and means Atanasovic won't have to be brought to court under high security to testify against Peck.

Peck's prior involvement with the law means he will likely serve every minute of his sentence and will not be eligible for early parole, Mainella said

Crown to begin murder case in biker slayings

First-degree charges against six stem from shooting of 8 Bandidos, associates

Canada - Prosecutors will begin rolling out their case today against the accused in the slaying of eight Toronto-area members and associates of the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang, found shot in a Southwestern Ontario farm field in April.

Six people alleged to be bikers, including one former police officer, are accused of first-degree murder in the province's worst mass gangland killing. Two people are accused of being accessories after the fact.

Today, they will step into an extra-large prisoners' box in a London courtroom to begin a preliminary hearing, nearly nine months after eight people were gunned down in what police called the "internal cleansing" of a Canadian chapter of the Bandidos.

With so many connections to the underworld, police aren't taking any chances with security.

"This is a biker trial. For the safety of everyone involved, everyone going into the courtroom will be checked," said Staff Sergeant Dean Lees, of the London Police Service.

The public will pass through two checkpoints before entering courtroom 21, a high-tech room built in 2003 for trials with multiple accused.

Eight defence teams and six Crown prosecutors will take their positions, and a second courtroom with a video feed has been booked to seat the large number of court spectators expected.

London police have teamed up with the Ontario Provincial Police to beef up their presence at the hearing, which is expected to last three months. The court proceedings, details of which cannot be published, will determine whether there is evidence against the accused to warrant a trial.

In the Ontario hamlet of Shedden, about 40 kilometres south of London, eight wooden crosses now stand in the field where the bodies of the Bandidos were discovered by a farmer April 8, stuffed into three cars and a pickup truck.

Two days later, full-patch Bandido Wayne Kellestine, 56, and four associates, including a woman, were charged with first-degree murder.

Charges against Eric Niessen, 45, and Kerry Morris, 46, both of Monkton, Ont., have since been reduced to being accessories, in connection to the sloppy disposal of the bikers' bodies in full view about 15 kilometres from Mr. Kellestine's isolated farmhouse.

The first-degree charges remained against Mr. Kellestine, Brett Gardiner, 21, of no fixed address and Frank Mather, 32, of Dutton-Dunwich Township. Police believe the killings took place on property belonging to Mr. Kellestine.

On June 16, three Winnipeg Bandidos bikers were arrested in early-morning raids.

Charged with first-degree murder in the Shedden killings were long-time Winnipeg residents Dwight Mushey, 36, Marcello Aravena, 30, and former police constable Michael Sandham, 36, bringing to six the total number of people charged with murder in the April slayings.

The Bandidos presence in Winnipeg, one of just two Canadian chapters, dates back to February of last year, when a probationary chapter was set up, growing to seven full-patch members and 13 prospects.

Police sources have said the catalyst for the violence was some members of the small Toronto Bandidos chapter joining the much larger Hells Angels.

The Hells Angels have denied any connection to the killings

HA facing murder conspiracy charge seeks bail


WHITBY -Canada- A Superior Court judge began hearing evidence Thursday as a high-ranking Hells Angels member facing a murder conspiracy charge applied for bail.

Remond Akelah, 43, has been in custody since his arrest in September. He was among more than two dozen bikers and associates swept up in Project Tandem, a provincewide police crackdown targeting outlaw gangs including the Hells Angels.

While most of the bikers busted in that sweep were charged with drug and property offences Mr. Akelah and Mark Stephenson, the current president of the Angels Oshawa chapter, were charged with conspiring to murder an underworld rival.

Mr. Stephenson was denied bail after a hearing in December.

Mr. Akelah, who lives near Cobourg, is a former president of the Hells Angels Oshawa chapter. He is now a member of the elite Nomads wing of the gang.

Justice Donald Ferguson is hearing evidence at the bail hearing. Mr. Akelah s release is being contested by the Crown.

Evidence presented during Mr. Akelah s bail hearing is subject to a publication ban.

http://www.durhamregion.com/dr/regions/top_stories/story/3831686p-4433367c.html

Find a job after leaving prison, biker told

Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette


One of the leaders of the Bandidos biker gang – a man frequently targeted by the Hells Angels – will be released from prison soon on the condition he find honest work.

Serge (Merlin) Cyr, 48, one of several Bandidos arrested in a massive police roundup in 2002, will reach his statutory release date in late February.

On June 23, 2005, Cyr received a 6 1/2-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to several charges, including drug trafficking and gangsterism. When the time he had served awaiting the outcome of his case was factored in, Cyr had only 30 months left to serve.

Cyr is being held in a medium-security prison.

When the National Parole Board recently reviewed his case, two commissioners decided to attach a series of conditions to his release.

They included a rarely used condition that Cyr must find a full-time job with declarable revenue, or at least provide proof he conducted an "intensive job search."

Boys next door

Canada - As Alberta gangs get better at their game, Edmonton-area residents need look no further than their own neighbourhoods to find gang members, police said yesterday.

"It's time that the community knows what's really going on," said Staff Sgt. Kevin Galvin, head of the Edmonton Police Service co-ordinated crime section.

"These gang members don't live in the marginalized communities ... they don't live in the inner city.

"They live next door to each one of you. They're the ones buying the large houses. They're the ones purchasing legitimate businesses for money laundering."

Galvin was speaking yesterday at a news conference to provide an update on the 2006 progress of the Metro Edmonton Gang Unit, a joint EPS-RCMP unit that began as a pilot project in 2005 and was made an official unit last year.

The unit was brought in to combat the "growing issue" of gang activity in Edmonton and the surrounding area during this economic and population boom, said cops.

About 18 criminal networks and one organized crime group, the Hells Angels, are operating in the Edmonton area, police said.

In a rare move, police released the names of the 10 "self-named" of the 18 "criminal networks" they say are operating in the Edmonton area: Alberta Warriors, Crazy Dragons, Crazy Dragon Killers, GTC (Get The Cash), Indian Posse, North End Jamaicans, Redd Alert, Southside Boys, West End Jamaicans and White Boy Posse.

Police spokesman Karen Carlson said the names of the gangs were released to build awareness among the public about the gangs issue.

The names of the other eight gangs, who have been given names by police, weren't released.

Cops said most gang violence in the Edmonton area is internal rather than fights between gangs over territory like in other parts of the country. Eleven of the 36 homicides in the city last year were gang-related, they said.

Police also said gang members have become good business people, except for the fact their business is illegal and tax-free. Street gangs often act as front-line workers for organized crime gangs.

In 2006, the Metro Edmonton Gang Unit seized 42.5 kilograms of cocaine, including 18 kg found in a hidden compartment of an SUV, police said.

The unit also seized 14 kg of marijuana, more than 100 guns and more than $1 million cash

No more charges for Mom Boucher


Canada - The alleged former Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher, who is serving a life sentence for murder, will not face any further criminal charges, Quebec's Crown prosecutor's office said Thursday.

Boucher was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of two prison guards in 1997. He was also found guilty of attempted murder involving a third guard, who survived an attack. He's serving three concurrent life sentences for the charges with no chance for parole until 2022.

Several charges were pending against the alleged biker kingpin, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking and gangsterism.

Crown prosecutors suspended those charges while Boucher exhausted his appeal options on his previous convictions, which a jury handed him in 2002.

In November 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it would not hear Boucher's appeal on the first-degree murder conviction. The Quebec Court of Appeal also turned down the former biker's appeal, in May 2006.

Quebec's Crown office said considering Boucher won't be eligible for parole until he's 69, there's no point in pursuing the pending charges.

 

Zig Zag


Canada - The main suspects in the May 2003 execution-style shooting of Kevin Tokarchuk may never see the inside of a courtroom, but Winnipeg homicide investigators are one step closer to identifying all the responsible parties.

"New source information has strengthened our belief that a former high-ranking Zig Zag Crew member ordered the hit," said Det. Thane Chartrand of the homicide unit. The Zig Zags are a street gang controlled by the Hells Angels.

Police believe the man is now a Hells Angel.

It's believed the gangster did not get approval from the Hells before ordering the hit. Tokarchuk was gunned down at the rear of his Churchill Drive home in what police believe was a revenge killing ordered by the gangster.

The hit on Tokarchuk was on the anniversary of the shooting death of Zig Zag drug dealer Trevor Savoie. Savoie was gunned down by Tokarchuk's older brother Daniel. The older Tokarchuk owed Savoie about $11,000, said sources.

Daniel Tokarchuk was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the shooting.

BIKE CHOPPED UP

"The homicide has not reached the cold case cabinet. We continue to work it and are getting closer to positively identifying the responsible parties, one or more of whom may be dead," said Chartrand.

Police have always believed the man who masterminded the hit let the triggerman use his motorcycle. The motorcycle disappeared within days of the murder.

Homicide cops believe the bike was chopped up and the pieces shredded or used for spare parts.

Five cops, placed on administrative leave following the shooting, hampered the homicide unit's investigation, charges retired Sgt. Jim Thiessen.

"Two of those officers had just completed an investigation into the Zig Zags and had identified a potential suspect," said Thiessen. "They had information that couldn't be replaced and we couldn't talk to them."

The officers, charged with not warning Tokarchuk of a potential hit on the anniversary of Savoie's death, were cleared of any wrongdoing by an adjudicator.

"Had we been able to continue our investigation, the likelihood was good we'd have found the evidence needed to charge a suspect," Sgt. Lyle Loehmer testified in June 2005.

One of the suspects -- a known enforcer with the Zig Zags -- died of a drug overdose in 2004, but many people believe his death wasn't accidental. Several sources told the Sun he'd been "hot shotted" -- a street term for a person unknowingly using drugs with a higher-than-normal potency.

In July 2005, another high-level Zig Zag enforcer was stabbed to death in an apparent internal dispute.

Street sources claimed the pair were feuding after the dead man missed a shift when he was supposed to be providing protection to the former high-ranking Zig Zag member who had become a Hells Angel.

http://winnipegsun.com/News/Winnipeg/2007/ 01/02/3134042-sun.html

Next court date set for biker


Canada - Biker Francesco (Frank) Lenti showed little emotion as he made a brief court appearance, via a video-hookup, to face second-degree murder charges in the shooting of a high-profile Hells Angel in a Vaughan strip club.

A half-dozen of the Bandidos biker's family and friends appeared in a Newmarket court to watch him for a few minutes on television, as a justice of the peace remanded him to custody until Jan. 10.

Lenti, 59, faces charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons offences, after David (Dred) Buchanan, 32, the sergeant-at-arms for the Hells Angels' west Toronto chapter was shot to death around 1 a.m. on Dec. 9 at the Club Pro, formerly the Pro Cafe, near Highway 7 and Jane St.

Sources say Lenti has been under the threat of a murder contract since the summer. Two members of the Hells Angels in the GTA were charged last summer with attempting to murder him. He survived a car bombing in 1995 that left him with a permanent limp.

For his brief court appearance, his long, grey hair was tied back and his goatee was neatly trimmed, and he no longer sported a black eye he had after the shooting. Buchanan was the first Ontario Hells Angel member slain since the club moved into Ontario six years ago.

Carlos Virrilli, 28, a prospect in the west Toronto Hells Angels, and Dana Carnegie, 33, a full member of the same chapter, and former semi-professional hockey player with the Flint Generals, were both treated in hospital and released after the shooting.

Peter Edwards http://www.thestar.com/News/article/165679

Sign comes down: In December 2001, RCMP and Halifax Regional Police take down the sign from the front of the Hells Angels clubhouse on Dutch Village Road after conducting a raid. (File photo)
By Stéphane Massinon
The Daily News

CRIME - They've been expanding throughout the country, and the Hells Angels could be coming back to Nova Scotia, say the RCMP.

A recently released Criminal Intelligence Service Nova Scotia annual report said, "police expect the future opening of a Hells Angels club in the province, but details of when, where, chapter affiliations and membership are unclear."

Police have been seeing more Hells Angels doing runs in the province since the closing of their Halifax chapter, said the RCMP's Const. Stephen MacQueen, who is with the integrated biker unit.

"It's basically a bike trip. They're all on their bikes and they drive in a pack. It could be as simple as they go around the Cabot Trail and they go back to Ontario.

"They're coming here so people still see the colours, people still know that they're around. We've seen an increase in that. That's important to them, to show those colours, especially when they don't have a chapter here, per se," said MacQueen.

The annual report said there is one full-patch member living in the province. MacQueen said the man is originally from Ontario and had been a Halifax-chapter member.

Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley said the Angels were a huge influence on the illegal drug trade in Atlantic Canada and are probably still players. He's wary of the fact there is no visible presence here anymore.

"We'd be foolish to think they don't have a criminal network here," he said.

Since Atlantic Canada has traditionally been Hells Angels territory, MacQueen said it's unlikely another gang, such as the Bandidos, would set up shop here.

The gang has been growing across the country with new chapters springing up.

"What they don't have here in Atlantic Canada is that official presence.

"That official presence is important, because people see the colours, people see these guys around all the time, and people understand when they see them that this is their territory, that type of thing," MacQueen said.

"They don't have that here right now. It's more of a belief on our part that the expansion that's happening in the rest of the country will eventually come to Atlantic Canada.

"We have nothing specific more than that, other than that's kind of been their M.O.: expansion, expansion, taking over territory. Since the takedown of the Halifax chapter, we haven't seen that at all here," added MacQueen.

In 2001, after a large-scale police investigation, the Halifax chapter of the outlaw motorcycle gang was closed.


Police have been watching and waiting to see what they next move of the Hells Angels would be ever since that takedown.

Exactly where and when - or even if - a new club opens remains to be seen.

"There could be one in a year, or it could be five years or 10 years. Or it's possible they wouldn't open one up here," MacQueen said.

"We look at them; it's all about money- making and territory and power. The fact they don't have a presence here is quite significant." - With files from Richard Dooley

smassinon@hfxnews.ca