Joint police drug probe results in the arrests of 12 people

EDMONTON Ten people — including a member of the Hells Angels and two members of a support club — are facing close to four dozen charges after being arrested for their alleged role within a major cocaine distribution network across northern Alberta.

Police made the arrests in late July in what was the culmination of a yearlong joint investigation between Alberta Law Enforcement Teams’ (ALERT) outlaw motorcycle gang enforcement unit and the RCMP’s federal serious and organized crime team.

Five kilograms of cocaine, a half-kilogram of the buffing agent phenacetin, cannabis resin, and a handgun were seized along with multiple vehicles and motorcycles and $13,000 in cash. Police say the drug network reached Edmonton, Spruce Grove, Cold Lake, Whitecourt, and Grande Prairie.

“While ALERT is thankful to get five kilograms of cocaine off the street, the true success of this investigation is the complete disruption of this network’s reach and the tentacles it had spread into so many communities across this province,” ALERT boss Supt. Chad Coles said at a Thursday news conference.

Of even more significance for police is the fact they, for the first time ever in Alberta, laid their first instructing a criminal organization charge against a current member of the Hells Angels.

Police allege that William McCabe, 47, a member of the Hells Angels’ Westridge chapter was the “primary facilitator” of the cocaine distribution network.

The Project Entry investigation also led to the arrest of Shane Daly and Pascal Jacques, both members of the Dirty Few Lakeland chapter, which police say is a known Hells Angels support club.

Daly and Jacques are charged with participation in activities of a criminal organization, conspiracy to traffic in cocaine, and instructing commission of offence for a criminal organization in cocaine trafficking.

Also arrested alongside McCabe, Daly and Jacques are Joseph Collicutt, 32, of Grande Prairie, Theresa Acker, 42, of Spruce Grove, Anton Petrowitz, 36, of Calgary, Clinton Thomas, 33, of Parkland County, Nicholas Stovell, 38, of Cold Lake, Nicholas Delibasic, 46, of Cold Lake and Larissa Ausmus, 31, of Spruce Grove.