ROUGH RIDE FOR JUSTICE

CROSS-CANADA SHOWDOWN

A Sun Media special section takes an in-depth look at organized biker crime
across the nation

The lawmen and the outlaws are heading for a national showdown.

The feds are poised to reveal new, tougher laws to combat criminal gangs,
and they're aiming those laws directly at bikers.

At the same time, the bikers are consolidating their forces, swallowing
smaller clubs into the roughest of the outlaw big leagues: the Hells Angels,
the Bandidos, the Outlaws.

This 12-page special report by Sun Media reporters and photographers tracks
the national expansion of the Hells Angels - Alberta in 1997, Saskatchewan
in 1998, Manitoba in 1999, Ontario in 2000 - and their rivals the Bandidos,
who have now made their first patches in Canada.

We examine the nature of these groups from inside and out. We look at how
police and prosecutors are fighting this force which has become bigger than
the long arm of the law itself.

And we look at the victims - the innocent and the not-so-innocent.

This special section covers all of Canada, leaving readers with a clear
picture of bikers in Eastern Canada, the Prairies and British Columbia. And,
in this city, it focuses in fine detail on the bikers that ride the roads
from Red Deer north, and the police who deal with them.

Last week, the federal Justice Department announced proposed changes to the
anti-gang-law Bill C-95 to allow judges to impose tougher sentences for gang
membership, let police break the law in specific investigations, and fight
intimidation of jurors, police and prosecutors.

More than that is needed, cops across Canada told The Sun.

In Montreal within the past three weeks, two bikers were murdered and
another was wounded, raising the spectre of renewing Quebec's biker war.
That's a war which, since 1994, has killed 156 people and wounded 172. And
in Manitoba, a drug turf war has escalated as more than 30 traffickers fight
the Hells Angels' move to monopolize the business.

There have been drive-by shootings, a murder and street attacks in the
Winnipeg area since late last year.

"It's all about control of the green (marijuana) and the white (cocaine),"
said Winnipeg Det.-Sgt. Ray Perry.

And, it's all about control across the country.

The fuel for public ire against bike gangs was lit in Montreal in 1995 after
Daniel Desrochers, 11, was caught in the crossfire of Quebec's biker war
between the Angels and its rival bike gang, the Rock Machine.

Desrochers was playing in a Montreal schoolyard when a booby-trapped Jeep
blew up across the street. The blast sent a shard of metal into his skull.
He died four days later.

Still, the war went on.

In March 1997, about 2,000 people marched in Quebec City, demanding changes.
Their protest was spurred after a Rock Machine bomb blasted the Hells
Angels' clubhouse in nearby Saint-Nicolas a week earlier. A two-month-old
baby narrowly escaped injury after debris smashed through a window in one of
the 50 area homes damaged in the blast.

By April, the feds had passed the anti-gang-law Bill C-95, a move critics
called a hasty reaction to public and political pressure coming out of
Quebec.

In Edmonton, police see the law as simply unworkable.

Forget 6-6-6 and the beast, cops say 5-5-5 is the number of the burden.

Five criminals doing crimes together over five years, and facing sentences
of five years or more - that's a crime gang in Canada, the nation's current
law says.

Alberta lawmen say proving charges under Section 467.1 of the Criminal Code
is daunting, if not impossible.

They need to convince the court:

- - The person charged is a member of a group with at least five members.

- - The person charged knows others in the group have done crimes within the
past five years, and that they could be jailed for at least five years for
those crimes.

- - The person charged has also done a crime worth five years or more in jail
and did that crime at the request of the group or for its benefit or with
its other members.

- - The group has crime as a "primary activity."

Anyone convicted of participation in a criminal organization faces a maximum
sentence of 14 years.

Edmonton RCMP Sgt. Bill Appleby told The Sun he sees the anti-gang law as
virtually impossible to prove.

And while federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan, an Edmonton MP, is poised
to introduce the promised overhaul, her department refuses to say if the
wording of the law will change.

"Obviously everything is on the table," said department spokesman Farah
Mohamed.

Leaks from the department have said the minister will expand police powers
so they can break the law during investigations. And, she will introduce
measures to protect witnesses and prosecutors in gang trials.

Mohamed, who said extensive talks went on with police and provincial
governments prior to the changes being written, won't even say if the issue
of the current language was raised.

"It would violate parliamentary privilege."

There have been only about a half-dozen guilty pleas to the charge in Canada
and only one guilty decision by trial, to a Calgary cocaine dealer.

The howls of protest against biker crime grew louder last year after the
daylight shooting of Journal de Montreal crime reporter Michel Auger in the
newspaper's parking lot. The shooting showed Bill C-95 didn't scare off its
targets.

Then, just before Christmas, the Angels moved into Ontario and became truly
national.

The Bloc Quebecois were instrumental in pushing the federal government to
change the law. Bloc MP Michel Bellehumeur argued the Liberals haven't done
enough to fight organized crime, noting the Hells Angels' expansion into
Ontario.

"This used to be a Quebec problem but, with it moving into Ontario, maybe it
will wake up some Ontario MPs," he said.

The Bloc has been demanding tougher legislation to ban gang membership, even
using the notwithstanding clause to override the Constitutional right of
association.

In Quebec City, 13 Angels and associates pleaded not guilty to 162 charges
in a case where they've launched a constitutional challenge to Bill C-95. A
decision is pending.

"The Bloc will be vigilant so that this moves forward.

"We will lay our cards down and make it our priority this session,"
Bellehumeur vowed. If the government acts, he said the Bloc would give the
government its full support.

Other provincial pressure to change anti-gang laws has been building in the
past two years.

Ontario Attorney General James Flaherty wants Ottawa to prohibit recruitment
and participation in criminal groups, ban gang logos and lower the number of
people to define organized crime from the current five to two.

"We have had a large number of criminal biker gangs in Ontario for a number
of years," said Flaherty. "There may be some new developments but it's not a
new phenomenon. It's been a serious threat for a number of years."

What crime groups fear is not what the government is doing, but what it can
do. They know that although new, tougher laws would probably be tested
against bikers first, they will eventually be used against other groups.

That fear prompted traditional organized crime groups to pressure the Rock
Machine and Hells Angels to stop their wars in Montreal and Quebec City last
Thanksgiving Day.

"The Italians and Irish, the West-End Gang" put the strongest pressure on
the bikers to end their separate turf wars in Montreal and Quebec City, said
Surete du Quebec Sgt. Guy Ouellette. The other groups were worried about the
amount of money at stake.

In its most recent study of organized crime, a 1998 federal solicitor
general report indicated Canada's drug market is worth between $7 billion
and $10 billion, and continues to be organized crime's primary source of
money.

Drug use and trafficking is conservatively estimated to cost B.C., Ontario
and Quebec between $1.4 billion and $4 billion in health care, reduced
productivity and policing, it said.

The report also estimates between $5 billion and $17 billion is laundered
annually.

Gangs are involved in drug trafficking, cigarette and alcohol smuggling,
stripper talent agencies, prostitution, extortion and protection rackets,
and control about 80% of the country's marijuana-growing operations.

The money involved in Canada's underworld is staggering, agreed Ouellette.

"Billions, easy. But you see, it won't help anybody to talk about money for
one reason: Nobody has a damn idea what a million looks like," Ouellette
said.

"Billions, trillions ... Tell me about $10,000 or $100,000. I can see what
it looks like, and I will believe. Hundreds of millions? You're talking
about Martians, outer space. And nobody believes in that."

A Toronto officer says several downtown businesses are being hit for between
$2,000 and $4,000 a month in protection rackets, and are also forced to hire
members.

The RCMP says biker gangs' sophistication and influence rival that of
traditional organized crime groups. But while other groups seek anonymity,
bikers advertise with gang colours.

The Hells Angels' move into Ontario is "opening the English market,"
Ouellette said. "Think about it. And now they can be millionaires, each and
all of them. You see, there's a lot of money in Ontario, and now, being able
to supply the Ontario guys with good dope and large quantities, and no
problem with territory, it's a big market for them."

Because of their worldwide buying power, the Hells Angels can flood drug
markets with cheaper products, added Ontario Provincial Special Squad
Staff-Sgt. Don Bell.

When the Bandidos, the world's second-largest bike gang behind the Angels,
arrived in Ontario, it caught the Angels off-guard, he said. But loss of
face wasn't the motivating factor for moving into the province. "It's
money," said Bell.

On the surface, it appears biker activities will only affect those who live
on the "wrong side of the tracks."

"Organized crime affects the quality of life of every citizen," said
Manitoba RCMP Cpl. Gil Lafreniere. Organized crime has subtly worked into
the community fabric and everyone pays for it, through taxes, insurance and
policing costs, he said.

Niagara Region Staff-Sgt. Reg Smith agrees.

He said the Angels try to put a positive spin on moving into a community
where "they try to embrace it and get support from it, but always under the
guise of doing something good, being good guys.

"Yet the underlying current is they're there to do business, and do their
dope dealing," said Smith. "Once they're set up and they're in, then they'll
eventually monopolize the area.

"And then they'll just extend from that particular criminal act of dope
dealing to the next one, to dancers, to extortions, even into legitimate
businesses where they're going to front their money."

Ouellette said legislative change to defeat organized crime ultimately rests
with Canadians, if they have the resolve to insist politicians make the
necessary changes.

"It's the persuasion of the people who will change the law, not the cops
complaining, because it's not my job," said Ouellette. "My job is to protect
the people.

"More pressure put on by citizens will change the law."