Divide and conquer
Like an army, the Hells Angels made a pincer move through Ontario to try
to surround its rival the Bandidos.
In a bloodless manouevre, the Hells swallowed up four biker gangs in late
December to contain the former members of the Rock Machine, who had become
probationary members of the Bandidos.
Police say the military-like moves are all about the Hells Angels securing
its underworld market share in the province.
At the same time, bike gang leaders really hope the "business move" doesn't
become an act of war.
Biker warfare -- like that in Quebec which to date has killed 156 people
since 1994 -- is bad for business. Too much public outcry and police
attention interferes with biker interests in drugs, extortion, strippers,
prostitutes and other operations.
"We don't want to start a war in Ontario like we did in Quebec," said a
former Rock Machine member turned Bandido. "We are still working for peace.
We don't want the sh-- to happen again. It's not fun for anybody."
Sgt. Guy Ouellette, the Surete du Quebec's expert on bike gangs, agrees
that gang leaders are trying to avoid largescale bloodshed in Ontario. He
noted the Hells spearheading the move into Ontario weren't involved in the
Quebec war.
"The guys who are making the expansion want the peace. They want to make
big bucks," he said.
However, Ouelette said it's unreasonable to expect just friendly rivalry
with the Bandidos "because it's major league.
"They are pissed because they lost the monopoly of the country and having
another international organization ... trying to choke them," he said.
"If the Bandidos can keep their heads out of the water, they will survive
and they will become stronger after that, because those who will not be
happy with the way the Hells Angels do business will go on the Bandidos
side."
The Hells have a history of killing, he said. "If they want to take over
your territory, they won't hesitate to kill you.
"The Hells Angels don't care. They are self-sufficient. The worst thing in
Ontario is that they opened 168 different franchises the same day."
---
Ontario's biker brotherhood underwent an abrupt change last month -- with
former enemies becoming friends, and friends becoming adversaries.
The process had started last summer with the rapid expansion of the
Quebec-based Rock Machine into Ontario. Then, the Bandidos and Hells Angels
roared into the province.
For decades, Ontario's bikers had operated in relative peace.
The Hells Angels peddled in Franco-Ontario communities, particularly in the
north. The Vagabonds, Para-Dice Riders, Outlaws, Red Devils, Last Chance,
Lobos, Satan's Choice and Loners were based primarily in southern Ontario.
Then, last year, the Rock Machine opened three Ontario chapters within
three months -- Eastern, Toronto and Western, bolstering its numbers with
defecting Outlaws.
Younger Outlaws embraced the upstart Quebec-based gang, which was then
warring with the Hells Angels. But Outlaws national president Mario Parente
was incensed at the Rock Machine for raiding his membership.
Last month, the brotherhood of bikers changed again when the Bandidos
swallowed the Rock Machine. The new Bandidos were hit Dec. 7 as Quebec
City's Integrated Regional Task Force nabbed 15, including chapter boss Fred
Faucher, Marcel Demers, and Simon Bedard, a Quebec chapter founder and
thought to be its drug supplier.
The Hells Angels, in turn, assimilated four Ontario gangs.
The changes ushered in new relationships. Everywhere in the world, the
Bandidos and Outlaws are allied, but in Ontario that alliance would become
strained, while the global animosity between the Hells and Outlaws would be
tempered here.
The Hells' Ontario network will get even larger, police believe, with more
than 40 Red Devils in Hamilton, Canada's first outlaw biker gang, expected
to don the Death's Head.
Toronto's Vagabonds are also viewed as future members, despite internal
strife, which saw the removal of long-time president Peter (Crow) Lordon and
four other members. Sources said Lordon and the others held secret talks
with the Hells Angels to arrange a patchover, but other members balked.
A police source said the Hells' also approached the Loners in Woodbridge
and Chatham. Another source said the gang is in disarray, trying to decide
which side to take.
However, a Loners' member refuted the sources. "Nobody gave us any
ultimatums. Nobody gave us anything," he said. "We're not going anywhere.
We're just going to be who we are. We're not going to take anybody's side.
We don't want to take anybody's side."
---
Det. Staff-Sgt. Don Bell, of the Provincial Special Squad, said the PSS is
taking a wait-and-see stance with the re-making of the province's bikers.
However, Bell said, authorities do have major concerns.
The Ontario clubs now have access to worldwide organizations -- with Hells'
North American chapters linked to South America, Africa, Australia and
Europe -- "with access to larger amount of drugs, more resources and things
of that nature."
The Bandidos' network ties North America, Europe and Australia. They are
allied also to a biker gang in Thailand.
The bikers' new alliances have also upset the balance of power of
traditional organized crime.
"In the past," one cop said, holding his hands in front of him, "the
Italians were up here and the bikers there.
"The tables have turned in the last 10 years, either the Angels are above
or even," he said, realigning his hands. "The other (groups) are secret. The
H.A.s? What are they fearing? They hide in plain sight."
---
Heavily-fortified walls surround a compound and building at the quiet
corner of rues Provost and du Prince in Sorel, Que., about 70 km northeast
of Montreal.
It houses the Hells Angels' mother chapter -- the centre of the gang's
eastern bloc, which stretches from the Ontario-Manitoba border to the
Atlantic Ocean.
It's from this chapter and another in Quebec City that the Hells waged
their bloody drug war against the Rock Machine.
Since July 14, 1994, bikers and their associates killed 156 people,
including six innocent victims. One was Daniel Desrochers, 11, who was hit
in the head by metal fragments when a Jeep was blasted with a Hells' bomb in
1995.
The war left another 173 wounded, including Journal de Montreal reporter
Michel Auger. He was shot six times on Sept. 13, 2000.
Quebec police are still looking for 13 others presumed dead.
Only a dozen of 110 Hells took on the defiant Rock Machine in Quebec, using
its network of puppet gangs to do the killing.
"Being a biker here is for real. Being a biker in Ontario is for fun, for
joy, for ride, for party," says the Surete's Ouellette.
The Quebec war ended last Oct. 8 at an Italian restaurant in downtown
Montreal's trendy bar district. In only 45 minutes at the Bleu Marin, rival
bikers agreed to end six years of warfare.
Pictures were taken showing a smiling Hells Angel Nomad boss Maurice (Mom)
Boucher trying his best to hug Rock Machine founder Paul (Sasquatch) Porter,
who got his nickname because of his height and huge girth.
The Rock Machine agreed not to deal for a year with the Texas-based
Bandidos, the world's second-largest bike club behind the Angels. The Angels
wanted the Rock Machine to consider trading their colours for Hells Angels'
patches.
About a month later, on Nov. 27, the deal was broken. The Rock Machine
voted to become probationary Bandidos. The move split the gang, with 12 Rock
Machine members defecting later to the Angels, including "Sasquatch," who
was twice the target of Hells' hitmen.
On Dec. 1, the Rock Machine became probationary Bandidos at a Vaughan
party, joining existing chapters in Toronto, Eastern Ontario, Western
Ontario, Montreal and Quebec City.
On Dec. 29, the Hells Angels moved. They took in 168 Ontario bikers from
the Lobos, Last Chance, Para-Dice Riders, Satan's Choice and four Rock
Machine members and 11 prospects.
The Hells established chapters in West Toronto, East Toronto, Toronto,
Woodbridge, Kitchener, Sudbury, Oshawa, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Lanark County,
Keswick and Simcoe County. The Hells also have an 11-member prospect chapter
in Niagara.
Ouellette said the Hells Angels gave Ontario's biker gangs a choice to join
them, "without having a choice."
He believes none were allowed to remain neutral, and any new bike group in
Ontario, whether motorcycle afficionados or one-percenters, will need Hells
Angels' approval to exist.
"Six days after the Bandidos patched over their five chapters, (the Hells)
met with these guys in Toronto and made them an offer: 'You're going to take
one side or the other. You're with us or against us'," said Ouellette.
For bikers in the smaller gangs, who weren't good enough in the past for
the larger Ontario gangs, they got instant respect and equality. "It's a
huge change for these guys," he said.
Ouellette says the Hells want complete control of a market.
"If you're not pleased in the past with the way the Hells Angels do
business, you have to shut your mouth or die," he said, but the Bandidos
give drug dealers a choice.
"It's exactly why the Hells Angels were in a rush," he said.
"What they did in Ontario, is the first time ... where they patch four
groups at the same time, making them brothers all at the same time," he
said. "You're not choosing your family. If they (Bandidos) can survive that,
they will be okay.
"Maybe in six months it will be different." Ouellette said, then added:
"Not maybe. It will be different."
Authorities fear the changes came sooner than expected.
A prominent member of the Rock Machine, Real (Tin Tin) Dupont, on parole
for a conviction after a 1996 RCMP counterfeit money sting in Candiac, Que.,
was murdered outside an arena north of Dorval airport Jan. 18.
Ouellette suspects the killing is "probably Hells Angels-related and we
will see the war started again."
On Jan. 11, former Rock Machine members Roger Berthiaume, 26, was killed,
and Robert Beland, 30, was wounded in Montreal. Both had flipped to the
Rockers chapter tied with Angels Quebec Nomads, which was behind the Ontario
expansion.
---
For now, the Hells Angels are treading carefully in Ontario. Niagara
Staff-Sgt. Reg Smith believes the Hells want to slide quietly into Ontario
"and they may be telling other gangs there's enough to go around for
everybody.
"That may be true for some (time), but I think eventually it'll go back to
'I want it all'," said Smith. "Right now, what I see, is the Hells Angels
have done is a band-aid solution to answer to what the Bandidos have done."
The Hells' prospect chapter of 11 members in Niagara is expected to become
the gang's most efficient.
"They will lift themselves up and be better trained" than the others who
patched, added a police source. Some of the prospects were running their own
cocaine network in small-town Ontario and have "deep local political
connections."
"It's a lucrative area," he said. "If they can control it, they will have
the string that controls the province."
The prospect chapter's sponsor is Walter Stadnick, a veteran biker based in
Hamilton and a former president of the Quebec Nomads. Police know little
about Stadnick, except that he wields influence within the biker world.
"They're prospects because they're not one-percenter bikers," Smith said.
"The other chapters are all full chapters and they already have that biker
mentality.
"But these guys, they have to train basically from ground zero right up, so
when they do reach full status then maybe they will be the true Hells Angel
in the province," he said.
"They may change their tactics and it may be harder (to convict them), and
that's what we have to realize."
Niagara has long been Outlaws territory, with its mother chapter in St.
Catharines. The Outlaws, historically the enemy of the Hells, had a monopoly
between Niagara and Hamilton.
But, in the last three years, Smith said there's been an influx of other
Ontario gang members into the area.
In September 1999, police nabbed seven area Para-Dice Riders associates and
a member in 'Project Winner,' named after former club president John
(Winner) Neil. Police seized guns and $65,000 in drugs, and bought 454 kilos
of explosives.
Two years ago, relationships changed in the region when Quebec Angels
arrived in Niagara Falls on a summer tour.
"Two people known in the area who were always thought of as Outlaws
supporters, they showed up, hugs and kisses with the Angels, visited with
them, partied with them," said Smith.
"That was the biggest shocker for us. It wasn't long after that they and
their associates flipped their allegiances to the Hells Angels and, in
particular, Stadnick," he said. "I think the other side of that story is
that they were showing the Outlaws that they ... can come in when they
want."
While there's a tenuous truce between the Outlaws and the Hells -- with the
Hells patronizing known Outlaw businesses -- sources note they've taken out
some insurance by making two brothers Hells prospects. A third brother
remains tied to the Outlaws.
Smith said there's been "so many bizarre changes in the last while, who's
to say now that maybe the Outlaws and Angels (won't) live in harmony and
become a force?"
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