Global gangs put Hells Angels under pressure
Several outlaw motorcycle clubs from across the globe are expanding into Canada
Last month’s violence involving motorcycle gangs in Texas — where a brawl begat a firefight killing nine — is a sharp reminder of the unpredictable core of outlaw biker life. The intense coverage, with the gritty, telegenic pageantry of the bikers, brought motorcycle gangs into the spotlight in the United States like nothing else before.
But it is something Canadians are grimly accustomed to.
Canada already had its “Waco moment” — several, in fact — rousing the public, police and politicians, shifting the gang image from freewheeling brotherhood of rogues toward that of a criminal cult: such as an Ontario purge in 2006 that killed eight members of one club, and a war in Quebec waged offering a staccato series of Waco-like moments as 160 people died.
While outlaw biker clubs in Canada have avoided those kinds of headlines recently, their landscape has shifted dramatically: Allegiances changing, new clubs starting, others collapsing.
Police watch carefully but no- where are developments likely tracked more fastidiously than in the clubhouses of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.
From their base in California, the Angels reach around the world. In Canada, it is the dominant club by a wide margin, 31 active chapters here and close to 400 members on the streets.
But today, the Angels face more competition than they have in years.
In recent months alone, notorious biker clubs from Europe, the United States and Australia — all strong, international organizations with a history of violence and crime — have each established new chapters in Canada.
Each region has its own story of acquiescence and acrimony.
ONTARIO
This spring, Satudarah Motorcycle Club, a Dutch-based group with a violent reputation in Europe, unveiled a surprise Canadian chapter in Toronto.
Satudarah offers a twist as an overtly bi-racial group (most clubs are vastly white.) The racial mix is reflected in its logo: a black and a white warrior, back to back wearing the same headdress.
Despite the progressive policy, Satudarah concerns police because of its members reputation for violence. Since its 1990 launch in the Netherlands, tension between the Satudarah and the Angels has been widely reported in Europe. For now, the Toronto chapter has kept such a low profile police have yet to document patches worn in public.
“It is a concern of ours. They are rivals of the Hells Angels so, if they are here, we’re going to pay attention,” says OPP Det.- Staff Sgt. Len Isnor, officer in charge of Ontario’s Biker Enforcement Unit.
There is more rumbling in Ontario.
On Nov. 8, 2014, three chapters of the Red Devils — formed in 1948 in Hamilton, making it the oldest in Canada — joined the Bacchus Motorcycle Club. Overnight, it became the second largest in Canada, with nine chapters and about 100 members.
The switch followed a year of intrigue.
For years, the Hells Angels kept their international support club, also called the Red Devils, out of Canada, likely in respect of the older brand. The original Red Devils, however, grew close with Bacchus and members of the two Canadian clubs wore a patch celebrating their “shared brotherhood.”
It is likely the Angels took that to mean the Red Devils were no longer a neutral club and in response unleashed their own Red Devils brand, first seen in Ottawa last year. Soon after, the original Devils merged with Bacchus.
Bacchus was once aligned with the Angels but is now seen as a rival, though police don’t expect a direct challenge.
“It’d be like a row boat going up against a battleship,” Isnor says.
A sign of acquiescence came in March: Bacchus changed its colours from saying “Ontario” to “Canada,” likely to avoid conflict with the Angels, whose members claim the exclusive right to declare a province on their backs.
The Rebels Motorcycle Club, the largest club in Australia with chapters in Europe and the United States, formed three chapters in Canada last summer: in Stratford, Ont., Vancouver and Edmonton.
The Vagos Motorcycle Club, one of the fastest growing clubs south of the border, settled in Peterborough, Ont., in 2012. In February there was a schism, with some members defecting to the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, maybe even forming a new Outlaws chapter.
The presence of Outlaws, a large club from the United States and the Angels’ oldest rival, is always aggravating for Angels.
“There is only one real competitor to the Hells Angels in terms of outlaw motorcycle gangs in Canada and that’s the Outlaws,” Isnor says.
“They don’t like each other. They don’t respect each other. And on a worldwide basis they are at each other’s throats.”
As for the Hells Angels in Ontario, membership crept up to 14 chapters, although one, Thunder Bay, is frozen after too many members were arrested.
QUEBEC
Quebec epitomized biker danger in the 1990s during the Hells Angels’ war with rival clubs, until police operations saw almost every Angel in the province arrested. Its Quebec chapters were frozen because rules require six members on the street.
Operation SharQc in 2009 led to guilty pleas from 101 of those arrested; 10 go to trial in August. The process has taken so long, those who pleaded guilty are trickling out of prison. One chapter, Montreal, has reopened. Others are close to doing so.
Meanwhile, members of numerous biker clubs affiliated with the Angels are parading their colours. They suggest not competition for the Angels, but rejuvenation.
It is seen as a clever way to reboot a tarnished organization: Have people wearing other patches do the dirty work and then, maybe, the best of them will become Hells Angels.
BRITISH COLUMBIA
More than anywhere in Canada, the Hells Angels are entrenched, stable and dominant here.
They arrived in the province in 1983, forming four chapters, then adding five, the most recent in 2012. Membership hovers around 100.
“In B.C., the Hells Angels — love ’em or hate ’em — have been able to take and keep control for the past 30 years,” says RCMP Sgt. Randy Mortensen, sergeant-in-charge of B.C.’s Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Unit. “Nobody has been able to wage any sort of war against such an entrenched group.”
Some tried and failed. One new club is trying: a chapter of the Rebels formed in the Vancouver area, described as “fragile” by a source.
“The reason we haven’t seen much biker violence — not that they aren’t inherently violent — is here they haven’t needed to resort to violence,” says Mortensen. “They are an organized crime group that has learned from the mistakes of others.”
A lack of violence is not a signal of a lack of crime; a smooth-running machine makes little noise.
PRAIRIES
Alberta’s oil boom brought new biker clubs feeding on an increased demand for drugs, police say, from three or four clubs a few years ago to more than two dozen. Most are support clubs for the Hells Angels.
“They came here when oil was booming. If you’re going to build a business, you want to build the business where you can make the most money,” says Insp. Darcy Strang, officer-in-charge of north- ern Alberta’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
“Every time we turn around we seem to see a new Hells Angels support club.”
The province now contends with intrusions by four other international biker clubs: The Mongols, the Rebels, the Vagos and the Warlocks.
Police documented 20 incidents of conflict between Angels and Warlocks in two months last year. At least some members of the Warlock’s Drayton Valley chapter are believed to have become Rebels. The Rebels may even have more than one chapter in Alberta.
Also new this spring is a chapter of the Vagos — although perhaps unsanctioned by the U.S. mother club — and a chapter of the Mongols. Both clubs have had difficulty coexisting with Angels.
The Mongols tried in Canada before, in 2007 in Toronto, but collapsed. In Alberta they have a presence in various regions.
The Mongols are “the baddest 1%er motorcycle club known worldwide,” according to the Mongols.
Police are actively watching, says Strang: “The last thing we want is a gang war.”
Saskatchewan is also Hells Angels territory, but police are concerned a chapter of Outlaws, formed in 2012, could spoil the peace.
“The Hells Angels are certainly trying to grow. They have a plan. But now they have a little competition,” says Saskatoon Police Services Det. Insp. Jerome Engele.
The Outlaws have had birthing pains, moving from Saskatoon to Prince Albert. The Angels, too, had stumbles, including a police probe targeting their aggressive support club the Fallen Saints.
The ebb and flow create uncertainty.
“I think we’ll see some confrontation in the near future. As the province becomes more affluent, we will see more activity,” says Engele.
The Hells Angels in Winnipeg is seen as the top of the heap in Manitoba’s biker scene, but have competition from the Rock Machine, which is notorious for fighting the Angels in Quebec’s biker war. The new incarnation attempts a juggling act — claiming, like all clubs, not to be a criminal gang while boasting of its dark past, saying “we defended ourselves from our enemies,” on its website.
EAST COAST
Atlantic Canada is the one region where Hells Angels aren’t dominant.
New Brunswick-based Bacchus was auditioning to become An- gels in 2001, but after a year was rejected, police say. When the Angels’ Halifax chapter closed in 2003 after arrests, this gave Bacchus a chance to expand, spreading across the Maritimes and into Ontario.
One biker gang Canada no longer contends with is the Bandidos, the club at the heart of the Texas shootout. The 2006 massacre of its members in Ontario led to the club abandoning Canada.
“We’ve not seen another Bandidos wearing their colours in this country since,” says Isnor. “I don’t think we we’ll see them here again for a long, long time.” The National Post contacted most of the clubs mentioned; none offered a constructive response.