Pubdate: Sun, 31 Dec 2000
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Copyright: 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  #250, 4990-92 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, T6B 3A1 Canada
Fax: (780) 468-0139
Website: http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonSun/
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Authors: Jack Boland and Rob Lamberti

ANGELS TO CONTROL ONT. DRUG MARKET: COPS

TORONTO --  The Hells Angels, with new chapters across Ontario boasting 168 
members and 11 prospects, have created an unbroken crime chain from Quebec 
to British Columbia.

The assimilation of four Ontario bike clubs into the California-based gang 
has divided the province's biker world into two camps, pitting the Hells 
against the Bandidos, the Outlaws and the Loners.

"With the Hells Angels here we see that they are here now to monopolize the 
(drug) market in Ontario," said OPP Det. Staff-Sgt. Don Bell, a spokesman 
for the Provincial Special Squad, who sets the gang's numbers in Ontario to 
roughly 400 bikers.

At a huge party held Friday at the Hells Angels' heavily fortified bunker 
in Sorel - dubbed the "Montreal mother chapter," 75 km northeast of 
Montreal - four Ontario outlaw motorcycle gangs, Satan's Choice, Para-Dice 
Riders, Last Chance and Lobos received full-fledged membership into the 
Hells' nation, a gang born in California in 1957.

More than 350 bikers from across Canada attended the party, including at 
least 130 new members from Ontario who flaunted their newly crested jackets 
to police force members from the Provincial Special Squad and the Surete du 
Quebec, who were monitoring the proceedings from outside the bunker's front 
gates.

Sgt. Guy Ouellette of the Quebec anti-biker squad said the new members will 
make up 11 new chapters in Ontario: Toronto, Toronto East, Toronto West, 
Woodbridge, Oshawa, Kitchener, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Sudbury, Thunder Bay 
and a Hells' elite "strike force" Nomads chapter which can operate anywhere 
in the province.

Ouellette alleged that longtime Hamilton Nomads member Walter "Nurgent" 
Stadnick will set up the Niagara Falls chapter along with 11 prospective 
members, some well-known criminal figures from the Niagara region.

Ouellette believes that members of the Hells Angels in Ontario will be the 
oldest of the gang's 400 members across Canada. The Ontario Hells average 
in age from 45 to 52.

Among that group will be retired Satan's Choice founder Bernie Guindon, who 
is expected to preside over the Oshawa chapter, Ouellette alleged.

Provincial authorities are monitoring the gangs to try to prevent the same 
violence that reigned in Quebec for more than six years from spilling over 
into Ontario.

"It would appear the Hells are planning to take a more aggressive role in 
managing (Ontario's) drug trade, and we're promising them an even more 
aggressive fight to ensure their efforts are futile," said OPP Det.-Insp. 
Ross Bingley.

During the Quebec reign of terror more than 150 were killed during the 
savage drug-turf war between the Hells Angels and Rock Machine, who have 
now become probationary members of the world's second-largest outlaw biker 
gang - the Bandidos.
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