|
  |
 Hells Angels still a force in B.C.'s gang subculture |
| Autor |
Beitrag |
Katrin
Besucher
 |
|
| Hells Angels still a force in B.C.'s gang subculture |
   
|
Nanaimo Hells Angels president Lloyd Stennes, 64, thought the police were knocking on his door when he answered it, gripping a metal baseball bat.
Instead, two investigators from the Canada Revenue Agency greeted the aging Angel that day in February 2006. They demanded details of his assets and cash flow because he is suspected of earning income through "organized crime or other criminal activities," according to notes in the agency's voluminous Hells Angels files.
The two-year revenue agency investigation into dozens of Hells Angels, associates, their wives and girlfriends is indicative of the increasing law-enforcement pressure on Canada's most notorious biker gang as it celebrates its 25th anniversary in B.C. this weekend.
View Larger Image
Hells Angels members from across Canada arrive at the gang's White Rock clubhouse yesterday.
Ian Lindsay, Canwest News Service
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****The image of the old man at the door with a bat speaks to the erosion of reputation. The Angels are no longer untouchable. Rival gangs no longer fear them.
Some of the mystique is gone but police warn that the club still controls much of B.C.'s illicit drug trade, worth billions of dollars annually. Indeed, the Angels have continued to spread their wings in B.C. since the first three chapters were formed in Vancouver, White Rock and Nanaimo on July 23, 1983.
It is only in the last two years that sophisticated multi-force criminal probes have led to dozens of charges and convictions against Hells Angels and associates.
The Nanaimo clubhouse where Stennes and his buddies gathered weekly for "chapel" was seized last November under the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Act by a heavily armed police emergency response team -- the first such action against the gang in this province. There are still two historic criminal cases before B.C. Supreme Court that could result in an official declaration that the Hells Angels, with 107 B.C. members in eight chapters, is operating as a criminal organization.
Just this week, Mission Hells Angel Brian Hall was arrested on an extradition warrant issued after he was charged in Washington state with conspiring to smuggle more than 1,100 kilos of marijuana and $185,000 cash across the border.
For years, the Hells Angels spokesman Rickey Ciarniello would brag to the media that no club member had been convicted of a crime in B.C.
But that all changed seven years ago, when full-patch Angels Ronaldo Lising and Francisco Pires were found guilty of cocaine trafficking after an unprecedented Vancouver Police investigation dubbed Project Nova.
Insp. Andy Richards, now with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, was a leader of the project, which began in the mid-1990s.
"It has been touted, since the convictions were registered in 2001, as the first successful Hells Angels project in the province," Richards said.
"That was a significant file because I think it really served to generate some momentum in this province and an appetite for biker investigations....
"Their stock has certainly dropped significantly out there in the criminal underworld. Other groups don't see them as the only game in town any more. There are now lots of other criminal groups out there."
Some of those -- like the ultra-violent United Nations and Red Scorpion gangs -- mimic the Angels in structure and imagery, adopting patches, logos and special gang jewelry.
Despite unprecedented police resources targeting them, the Angels are still here and growing. A new chapter formed in Kelowna in 2007, Richards said.
"We are not seeing dramatic expansion. What we are seeing in this province is slow, incremental, measured growth. Certainly Kelowna is an example of the expansion."
"We are considered to be a real Hells Angels' epicentre," Richards said. "B.C.'s Hells Angels are still considered to be very sophisticated. They are well-respected in the Hells Angels world, around the world."
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolon...fa5&k=77024&p=2
|
|
26.07.2008 11:46 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Views heute: 31.449 | Views gestern: 18.460 | Views gesamt: 114.499.094
|
