Binky
07-27-2008, 11:49 AM
UNTOUCHABLE NO MORE
B.C.'S Notorious Hells Angels Members Are In The Crosshairs Of Both Police And Tax Officials
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 25 anniversary in B.C. this weekend.
The image of the old man at the door with a bat speaks to the erosion of reputation. The Angels are no longer untouchable.
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 past 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 kg of marijuana and $185,000 cash across the border.
Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, who heads the RCMP's Outlaw Motorcycle Gang unit in B.C., said police ignored B.C. bikers in their infancy.
"For a long time, they really weren't being adequately policed, but in the last few years, we have diverted a whole bunch more resources to them and we have reaped the benefit of that. We have gathered the evidence, brought the evidence to the court and are showing the courts and the public that these guys are not just a motorcycle gang," Shinkaruk said.
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."
Project Essen
The effort has involved the RCMP, the enforcement unit and various municipal police forces.
In January 2005, while the revenue agency probe was well underway, police announced that a covert operation called Project Essen had resulted in trafficking and weapons charges against 10 Hells Angels, associates and members of the Prince George puppet club called the Renegades. Nine people later pleaded guilty, including Vancouver president Norman Krogstad and senior Vancouver member Cedric Smith, who The Sun revealed Friday has now disappeared and is presumed dead.
The tenth accused, Renegade president Billy Moore, was shot to death in March 2005, two days after securing bail.
Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said this week the Moore murder probe remains active, though no charges have been laid.
Then a few months later, in July 2005, the RCMP announced 18 full-patch Angels and associates had been charged in connection with the largest undercover biker investigation to date -- called E-Pandora. So far, eight people have pleaded guilty or been convicted on some of the charges, but the two largest indictments in the operation are still before the courts. Two accused were acquitted at trial.
A key in all three major cases was investigators' new-found ability to recruit agents or informants willing to infiltrate the biker gang and gather evidence that could be taken to court, Richards said.
"We've shown that they are not untouchable, that they are vulnerable and that they can't operate with impunity necessarily."
In the early years, no one would have dared to rat them out to police.
"I think one of the victories for the police in the last decade has been -- through a lot of hard work and a lot of coordinated effort -- I think we have come a long way in unmasking them for the public," Richards said. "We have seen a lot of convictions. We have seen prison sentences. I don't think that they have this mystique in the public arena any more, really. They have been completely unmasked.
"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.
"They were what a lot of young gangsters sort of aspired to be a decade ago. I think that has changed to a degree. I don't think they are seen as the epitome any more because they don't operate with the impunity that they once enjoyed," Richards said.
'A very taxing process'
Some younger gangsters are unwilling to commit to the onerous Hells Angels entry program that requires them to start as a "hangaround," then become a prospect before finally being accepted as a full-patch member.
"It is a very taxing process. It is a full-time commitment and people do it, in my view, because there is significant rewards at the end if you are successful -- criminal rewards," Richards said.
But no one can argue that B.C. Hells Angels aren't doing well financially. The Canada Revenue Agency documents, obtained by The Sun, identify businesses, luxury homes, investment real estate and hefty incomes of some of the members.
That's not counting undeclared income, which the agency says is "either suspected or known" to be derived from illegal activity.
However, B.C.'s Hells Angels have made it known they won't go away without a fight.
Leader Ciarniello declined to be interviewed about details of the club's birthday celebration. But he did complain that the police should have kept quiet about this weekend's party at the $1.1-million Langley clubhouse and its five acres of land, owned by White Rock chapter member Allan Debruyn's company, Hollyrock Holdings.
Both Debruyn and his company were part of the CRA investigation.
"It is a private matter," Ciarniello said. "If the police had not made this thing public, no one would have known about it.... I question the motives of the police in making this a public event."
Ciarniello is constantly questioning the motives of police and the other agencies that have cracked down on him and his biker pals.
He and other Hells Angels have accused police in the Federal Court of Canada of violating their Charter rights by colluding with the taxman to launch financial investigations of members.
Their affidavits provide a sense of what life is like under the microscope of police and other authorities.
The taxman pays a visit
Haney member Robert Griffis said the taxman came to his Maple Ridge home and motorcycle shop on Jan. 26, 2006, with police in tow.
"The police officer was looking into my front door and at the outside of my house. He said: 'You've got a pretty nice house here,' " Griffis said.
Ciarniello complained in his affidavit that security at Vancouver International Airport had harassed him when he was travelling to Frankfurt, Germany, with White Rock president Doug Riddoch on Nov. 28, 2005.
"While at the gate, as the passengers gathered, we noticed that we were being observed by two Customs and Immigration Officers," Ciarniello said.
He and Riddoch, who is due in court in August on charges of break and enter and assault, were pulled aside by the officers, who demanded to search the luggage of the senior bikers, Ciarniello said.
"I asked why, but was given no satisfactory answer. Instead I was informed that they wished to search our baggage in time for us to catch our flight. I asked under what authority they felt they had the right to detain us. In response they threatened me that if we didn't go into the room behind us, they would take our baggage apart on the floor where we were.
"The veiled threat was that we would miss our flight if we refused to cooperate with the officer," Ciarniello complained. "I was falsely arrested, unlawfully detained, subjected to abuse of power and an unlawful search."
He said the security guards jotted down names and numbers from Riddoch's address book. In court with Riddoch next month will be co-accused and fellow Langley Angel Villy Roy Lynnerup, convicted last year for trying to get through Vancouver airport security with a loaded .38-calibre pistol.
Vancouver chapter member Rick Conway also complained in Federal Court papers that police were helping the CRA track him. He was travelling with fellow Angel Hal Porteous back to Vancouver from Brazil. They were met at baggage carousel No. 5 by a revenue agent and two cops.
"I was surprised that he was able to determine when I would be arriving back in Vancouver. It is my understanding that only the police have access to airline flight manifest information," Conway said, describing himself a "tattoo artist" from Mission. He is one of the gang members before the courts in the Pandora investigation.
"The CRA officer who I dealt with was very nervous. His hands were shaking when he served me the documents. It seemed that he was being forced to do this and that it was not part of his normal job."
Porteous "was extremely unhappy to be served at this location and tried to get into a verbal confrontation," the agent later wrote in his file memo.
"Porteous made a reference that we were cockroaches which should be stepped on."
Stennes, the Nanaimo chapter president, was also upset when he was approached, according to revenue agency documents.
"Upon approaching the front door, a male approximately 62 years old with brown hair and a beard opened the door brandishing an aluminum baseball bat as he thought we were police officers," an agent wrote in the file.
"Once the misunderstanding was corrected, the male calmed down and was verbally identified by name and SIN to be Lloyd Stennes."
The revenue agents told Stennes he had 90 days to comply with their demand for financial records. One of the agents was bitten on the leg by Stennes' small white terrier as he left the residence, according to the documents.
But despite the unwanted attention, B.C.'s original Hells Angels still have a few things to party about on this anniversary weekend. Their lengthy Federal Court challenge succeeded in obtaining an out-of-court agreement with the revenue agency to withdraw its extraordinary requests for information, ending litigation that had resulted in thousands of pages of court files.
Their lawyers have already successfully argued in one criminal case against the "criminal organization" label.
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."
And they still have international tentacles and respect.
"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."
Sat, 26 Jul 2008
Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
B.C.'S Notorious Hells Angels Members Are In The Crosshairs Of Both Police And Tax Officials
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 25 anniversary in B.C. this weekend.
The image of the old man at the door with a bat speaks to the erosion of reputation. The Angels are no longer untouchable.
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 past 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 kg of marijuana and $185,000 cash across the border.
Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, who heads the RCMP's Outlaw Motorcycle Gang unit in B.C., said police ignored B.C. bikers in their infancy.
"For a long time, they really weren't being adequately policed, but in the last few years, we have diverted a whole bunch more resources to them and we have reaped the benefit of that. We have gathered the evidence, brought the evidence to the court and are showing the courts and the public that these guys are not just a motorcycle gang," Shinkaruk said.
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."
Project Essen
The effort has involved the RCMP, the enforcement unit and various municipal police forces.
In January 2005, while the revenue agency probe was well underway, police announced that a covert operation called Project Essen had resulted in trafficking and weapons charges against 10 Hells Angels, associates and members of the Prince George puppet club called the Renegades. Nine people later pleaded guilty, including Vancouver president Norman Krogstad and senior Vancouver member Cedric Smith, who The Sun revealed Friday has now disappeared and is presumed dead.
The tenth accused, Renegade president Billy Moore, was shot to death in March 2005, two days after securing bail.
Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said this week the Moore murder probe remains active, though no charges have been laid.
Then a few months later, in July 2005, the RCMP announced 18 full-patch Angels and associates had been charged in connection with the largest undercover biker investigation to date -- called E-Pandora. So far, eight people have pleaded guilty or been convicted on some of the charges, but the two largest indictments in the operation are still before the courts. Two accused were acquitted at trial.
A key in all three major cases was investigators' new-found ability to recruit agents or informants willing to infiltrate the biker gang and gather evidence that could be taken to court, Richards said.
"We've shown that they are not untouchable, that they are vulnerable and that they can't operate with impunity necessarily."
In the early years, no one would have dared to rat them out to police.
"I think one of the victories for the police in the last decade has been -- through a lot of hard work and a lot of coordinated effort -- I think we have come a long way in unmasking them for the public," Richards said. "We have seen a lot of convictions. We have seen prison sentences. I don't think that they have this mystique in the public arena any more, really. They have been completely unmasked.
"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.
"They were what a lot of young gangsters sort of aspired to be a decade ago. I think that has changed to a degree. I don't think they are seen as the epitome any more because they don't operate with the impunity that they once enjoyed," Richards said.
'A very taxing process'
Some younger gangsters are unwilling to commit to the onerous Hells Angels entry program that requires them to start as a "hangaround," then become a prospect before finally being accepted as a full-patch member.
"It is a very taxing process. It is a full-time commitment and people do it, in my view, because there is significant rewards at the end if you are successful -- criminal rewards," Richards said.
But no one can argue that B.C. Hells Angels aren't doing well financially. The Canada Revenue Agency documents, obtained by The Sun, identify businesses, luxury homes, investment real estate and hefty incomes of some of the members.
That's not counting undeclared income, which the agency says is "either suspected or known" to be derived from illegal activity.
However, B.C.'s Hells Angels have made it known they won't go away without a fight.
Leader Ciarniello declined to be interviewed about details of the club's birthday celebration. But he did complain that the police should have kept quiet about this weekend's party at the $1.1-million Langley clubhouse and its five acres of land, owned by White Rock chapter member Allan Debruyn's company, Hollyrock Holdings.
Both Debruyn and his company were part of the CRA investigation.
"It is a private matter," Ciarniello said. "If the police had not made this thing public, no one would have known about it.... I question the motives of the police in making this a public event."
Ciarniello is constantly questioning the motives of police and the other agencies that have cracked down on him and his biker pals.
He and other Hells Angels have accused police in the Federal Court of Canada of violating their Charter rights by colluding with the taxman to launch financial investigations of members.
Their affidavits provide a sense of what life is like under the microscope of police and other authorities.
The taxman pays a visit
Haney member Robert Griffis said the taxman came to his Maple Ridge home and motorcycle shop on Jan. 26, 2006, with police in tow.
"The police officer was looking into my front door and at the outside of my house. He said: 'You've got a pretty nice house here,' " Griffis said.
Ciarniello complained in his affidavit that security at Vancouver International Airport had harassed him when he was travelling to Frankfurt, Germany, with White Rock president Doug Riddoch on Nov. 28, 2005.
"While at the gate, as the passengers gathered, we noticed that we were being observed by two Customs and Immigration Officers," Ciarniello said.
He and Riddoch, who is due in court in August on charges of break and enter and assault, were pulled aside by the officers, who demanded to search the luggage of the senior bikers, Ciarniello said.
"I asked why, but was given no satisfactory answer. Instead I was informed that they wished to search our baggage in time for us to catch our flight. I asked under what authority they felt they had the right to detain us. In response they threatened me that if we didn't go into the room behind us, they would take our baggage apart on the floor where we were.
"The veiled threat was that we would miss our flight if we refused to cooperate with the officer," Ciarniello complained. "I was falsely arrested, unlawfully detained, subjected to abuse of power and an unlawful search."
He said the security guards jotted down names and numbers from Riddoch's address book. In court with Riddoch next month will be co-accused and fellow Langley Angel Villy Roy Lynnerup, convicted last year for trying to get through Vancouver airport security with a loaded .38-calibre pistol.
Vancouver chapter member Rick Conway also complained in Federal Court papers that police were helping the CRA track him. He was travelling with fellow Angel Hal Porteous back to Vancouver from Brazil. They were met at baggage carousel No. 5 by a revenue agent and two cops.
"I was surprised that he was able to determine when I would be arriving back in Vancouver. It is my understanding that only the police have access to airline flight manifest information," Conway said, describing himself a "tattoo artist" from Mission. He is one of the gang members before the courts in the Pandora investigation.
"The CRA officer who I dealt with was very nervous. His hands were shaking when he served me the documents. It seemed that he was being forced to do this and that it was not part of his normal job."
Porteous "was extremely unhappy to be served at this location and tried to get into a verbal confrontation," the agent later wrote in his file memo.
"Porteous made a reference that we were cockroaches which should be stepped on."
Stennes, the Nanaimo chapter president, was also upset when he was approached, according to revenue agency documents.
"Upon approaching the front door, a male approximately 62 years old with brown hair and a beard opened the door brandishing an aluminum baseball bat as he thought we were police officers," an agent wrote in the file.
"Once the misunderstanding was corrected, the male calmed down and was verbally identified by name and SIN to be Lloyd Stennes."
The revenue agents told Stennes he had 90 days to comply with their demand for financial records. One of the agents was bitten on the leg by Stennes' small white terrier as he left the residence, according to the documents.
But despite the unwanted attention, B.C.'s original Hells Angels still have a few things to party about on this anniversary weekend. Their lengthy Federal Court challenge succeeded in obtaining an out-of-court agreement with the revenue agency to withdraw its extraordinary requests for information, ending litigation that had resulted in thousands of pages of court files.
Their lawyers have already successfully argued in one criminal case against the "criminal organization" label.
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."
And they still have international tentacles and respect.
"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."
Sat, 26 Jul 2008
Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/