Copyright 1995-2022 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. The easiest way to launder it is simply to pack it in suitcases and fly to St. Kitts with it. In reality, Donny Petersen is the Angels' landlord. At the same time, suspects were arrested in Ontario, Manitoba, B.C., Jamaica and Mexico. "It allows the gang members to stay at arm's length and glean the profits. Amounts shown in italicized text are for items listed in currency other than Canadian dollars and are approximate conversions to Canadian dollars based upon Bloomberg's conversion rates. "And they have demonstrated their ability, like other successful sophisticated criminal organizations, to infiltrate legitimate organizations and institutions, both government and private. Still, profits from the border areas are only one part of the master business plan. The city is also very near the Thousand Islands smuggling route and is considered crucial to the Angels, so local police are bracing themselves for the kind of brutal warfare Quebec has seen. But you journalists never write about the Hells Angel who plays in an orchestra or the ones who are computer programmers.". Save hells angels support gear to get e-mail alerts and updates on your eBay Feed. He has the muscular arms of a bodybuilder, but his tan, preppy short grey hair and wire-rimmed glasses make him look like a prosperous accountant. You won't see much happening for another year or two. They are being very quiet. A few years earlier, they tried sending in their elite roving Nomads chapter to set up shop, but even the Nomads, famous for their ruthlessness, couldn't muscle aside Ontario's 11 existing biker gangs. "It is bulky and most of it is in $20 bills because that's what's used most often in drug buys. A community volunteer with no criminal record, he has addressed the conservative Empire Club as a guest of fellow motorcycle enthusiast Gareth Seltzer, its president, to complain about police persecution and violations of motorcycle riders' human rights. "Police cannot go across their [the natives']land; it's like a free-trade zone exempt from policing," said Cal Broeker, a former undercover agent for the RCMP in Montreal who lived on a reserve for two years. "Disorganized is more like it," he chuckles. "Kingston has a lot of criminals," said former RCMP Staff Sergeant Jim Butler, who teaches policing at St. Lawrence College there. For a week, Canadians have waited for a jury in Montreal to pass judgment on Maurice (Mom) Boucher, a 48-year-old Hells Angels leader who is charged with first-degree murder in the 1997 deaths of two prison guards and with attempted murder in the shooting of a guard who survived. Aggressively. As well as selling drugs, police say, the Angels know how to drum up demand. Finally, in December, 2000, about 170 members from seven Ontario gangs drove to Sorel, Que., to put on jackets and vests with the scarlet and white Hells Angels death's-head badge in a formal patchover ceremony. Ontario is the biggest market in Canada. Most come in the Angels' colours, red and white. It is also the gateway to the northeastern United States. "All the cash is the biggest problem," said a Toronto businessman with family ties to the club. He says the store "is projecting first-year sales well in excess of $250,000 for the Toronto charter," while another new store, Asylum Wear, will do the same in Oshawa. The bottom line for the Hells Angels is to ensure the government cannot seize their assets under federal proceeds-of-crime legislation. "We are arguably within the top 15 branded names in the world; around the world, the public recognizes our logos more than the biggest Canadian corporations. ", In the past, the Angels hired other outlaw bikers to manage their distribution in Ontario, but they found that "they were giving away two-thirds of their money," one Toronto businessman connected to the organization explained. Something went wrong. Others share Mr. Petersen's views. Now that the Hells Angels have taken over, the control is gone. . "There are no Cayman Island bank accounts, but there's that assumption out there. And yet 17 months ago, his old club, the Para-Dice Riders, agreed along with most of Ontario's leading biker groups to join the Hells Angels. And there will be more spinoff business later, providing jobs "for interested individual Hells Angels," Mr. Petersen says. Some information may no longer be current. 
", The Hells Angels' expansion isn't complete. He considers the police term "organized motorcycle gangs" a joke. Also disappearing is the image of the grubby, paunchy middle-aged biker with long grey hair. ", The Angels "can buy who they want, when they want," he said. Some owners enlisted the Bandidos, but others gave in, and more recently, club members have been arrested in Barrie, London, Woodbridge and Vaughan Region in connection with strong-arm tactics. The building at 498 Eastern Ave., once the home of the Para-Dice Riders, was sold last October to Red & White Co. Ltd. Two months later, on Dec. 13, about the time the Angels were ironing out the last details of their merger with the Para-Dice Riders, a company called 149222 Ontario Ltd. obtained an $80,000 mortgage on the building. In fact, the old Rock Machine, the Angels' despised archrivals in Quebec who were recently taken over by the Texas-based Bandidos, moved into Ontario, forcing an acceleration of the takeover plan. Then they deposit it in a Canadian bank there and withdraw the money when they need it with a credit card." "It doesn't matter what I say or what is true. For most Canadians, the long-running and brutal battle for biker dominance in Quebec has cemented the Angels' reputation as violent criminals. That means selling T-shirts, caps, motorcycle paraphernalia and other items with the Angels' death's-head logo on them. View cart for details. They all love it for the amenities -- and they stay.". CBC radio producer Robert (Rosie) Rowbotham, who spent 20 years in prison for trafficking in marijuana, has just finished a one-hour television documentary on biker culture. This provided a network to control drug distribution, although only a few members -- "five or six tops," one former undercover officer says -- run the business, with trusted associates handling distribution. The Angels learned a lesson from Quebec, where the gang fought for control of the drug trade and wound up involved in 152 killings and 170 attempted killings. "They're consolidating. The RCMP run their own investigations, often trying to strip the Angels of their assets -- such as the club's Toronto headquarters. Extortion is still a major profit centre. They employ experienced lawyers to set up offshore accounts, usually in the Caymans or in St. Kitts, for their money. There are many reasons to be a Hells Angel, but because we're beside Quebec, we're tainted.". At that gathering, a Hells Angel named Tony Biancaflora shook the hand of Mayor Mel Lastman, releasing a media storm.
But Mr. Petersen, 57, argues that he is simply a skilled mechanic, a successful businessman with Heavy Duty Cycles (his shop on Kingston Road in the eastern reaches of Toronto) and a busy freelance writer, "one of the most-read Harley technical journalists in the world.".
It created 11 new Ontario franchises for the Oakland, Calif., parent company, which now oversees an empire of more than 1,800 members in 22 countries. This article was published more than 20 years ago. Not surprisingly, this attitude is not shared by the Criminal Intelligence Service, an organization supported by 220 federal, provincial and municipal police forces in Canada. Two years ago, Toronto's illicit booze cans were under fierce pressure. As well as dressing like businessmen, bikers have learned how to make money disappear -- hidden in a maze of numbered companies, offshore trusts and front men. This page was last updated: 22-Jul 01:55. We used to have all these different biker gangs and they were dangerous, but controllable. He is the most visible member of the Hells Angels in Ontario, and "we are pariahs," he says. "They wanted the other end of the business too.".
For more recent exchange rates, please use the. The unit was housed in a large provincial building near Highway 401, but a few weeks ago, it suddenly left, and no one in the old building knows where it is now. ", Follow us on Twitter: @globeandmailOpens in a new window. . It's a complex and interesting organization, just to meet the different members. He owns Red & White, also the name of a new business he set up in Toronto's west end to take advantage of what he calls "the marketing and retail potential of our trademarks." The move into Ontario, they decided, would be more subtle, like a friendly corporate takeover. These are all legitimate, tax-paying operations, and Mr. Petersen is convinced the Hells Angel brand will make millions of dollars. ", The Angels, he says, are engaged in legitimate business activities. Mr. Petersen became a spokesman for the new group and was widely quoted in January during the infamous first-anniversary celebration the Angels threw at a downtown Toronto Holiday Inn. "So they went back, regrouped and played politics," said Mr. Downes, now a partner in MKD International Inc., a private security and investigations company. Usually much younger than the average Hells Angel, members of puppet clubs often work as bodyguards, drivers and errand boys. "There are 11 prisons in the area [as well as three provincial facilities] and when men come here, their friends and families often move here too. "Not even undercover police can go in. Two days later, raids in Calgary called Operation Shadow led to 275 charges against 51 people. See each listing for international shipping options and costs. In fact, the strong-arm approach had already failed. "Most of them are not criminals -- they're middle-aged 19-year-olds.". To keep up the pressure, 44 officers from 18 forces have banded together under the OPP's Insp. "For example, the Rizzutos in Montreal work with the Hells Angels and the natives at Akwesasne. Which is why they have been buying rundown hotels in centres between Montreal and Toronto to fix up as strip clubs, a serious business in itself and even more so as a way to distribute drugs. It's like joining the top group in the world.
"These stores function best when combined with tattoos and cafs," Mr. Petersen says. Donny Petersen runs a motorcycle shop in Toronto that gives him, along with other business ventures, a net worth of nearly $2-million, but life is tough. They "do the crime and the time [in jail] and the Hells Angels members get the money," Detective Inspector Don Bell of the OPP biker squad told one reporter. This year, raids conducted by 400 police from Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia netted 57 people in Atlantic Canada and another one in France. But the biggest prize has always been Toronto, a franchise now divided among five chapters that Jim Downes predicts will "merge with other criminal organizations. . The police are just a nuisance, a fly buzzing around their heads.". Mr. Petersen calls the backlash persecution -- Mr. Biancaflora may lose his job, he says -- and "whammo, I was fired by the deputy minister of education from an advisory board, a board I had been on for six to eight years.". "They came and said, 'We're going to take it over unless you pay us, or else,' " remembers one woman familiar with what happened. On March 28, 2001, in a surprise strike called Operation Springtime, 2,000 federal, provincial and municipal officers carried out 77 raids across Quebec. Even if he is acquitted, Mr. Boucher faces 13 more murder charges. "The fat slobs on the Harleys no more represent the Hells Angels than the posties represent the federal government," one senior federal law-enforcement official said. Bell to share intelligence, run undercover operations and put bikers in prison. . ", He adds: "The Hells Angels are part and parcel of the American dream. Jim Downes, former head of the Toronto police anti-biker unit, sees something quite different. The Bandidos now have probationary chapters in Woodbridge and Kingston. To smooth the way, the club made many Ontario bikers full members and also took in hundreds of lower-level associates from "puppet clubs" as well as biker wannabes called hangarounds. It was the largest police operation in Canada's history and netted 80 Hells Angels, including their entire Nomads chapter and members of two puppet clubs. . ", Organized crime groups co-ordinate most of the activity and provide an infrastructure, he added.
Mr. Boucher was already in jail, but police seized two of his houses, charged his son Francis with first-degree murder and laid 13 new murder charges against Mr. Boucher himself. Laying the groundwork took several years of visiting, schmoozing and negotiation. 
According to its latest annual report, "the Hells Angels continue to be the largest and most criminally active outlaw motorcycle gang in the country. But after that, watch out. How are police in Ontario handling all this? . They now wear expensive suits and are impeccably groomed, "but God forbid you get in their way," Mr. Downes warned. Number of bids and bid amounts may be slightly out of date. Within seven years, they'll be running most of the organized criminal activity in the province."