TAPE REVEALS HELLS ANGELS SECRET

Discussion About Expanding To The Okanagan Entered As Evidence In Drug
Trial

Police used an electronic bug to eavesdrop on a secret meeting inside
a Hells Angels clubhouse, where a senior member of the outlaw
motorcycle gang discussed plans to expand operations into the Okanagan.

The covert recording, a copy of which was obtained by The Vancouver
Sun on Wednesday, provides a rare glimpse into the inner circle of the
East End chapter of the Hells Angels and is believed to mark the first
time in B.C. that police penetrated a meeting of the notorious biker
group.

The conversation was entered as evidence at the cocaine-trafficking
trial of David Francis Giles, 58, a senior member of the East End
Hells Angels, who was living in Kelowna in 2005 with a number of other
members.

Federal prosecutor Martha Devlin alleged at trial that the East End
Hells Angels wanted to expand operations into Kelowna to take over the
lucrative illicit drug trade in the Okanagan.

"We're not gonna leave the East End, we're gonna separate from the
East End with the same motto, with the same rules, with the same
functions in mind," Giles says in the recording about setting up a new
Hells Angels chapter in Kelowna.

He told bikers at the Kelowna clubhouse to think about electing
executive officers. He said he was working with members of the East
End chapter "to convince them how to feel comfortable with what we
wanna do, and then go forward."

Giles, a Hells Angels member for 20 years, including a stint in
Quebec, admitted during the conversation that he was getting "tired of
drivin' a ... thousand miles, kilometres every two weeks" to attend
chapter meetings in Vancouver.

But he said he could live with a new chapter not being established. "I
can just as easy stay in my house and drive back and forth [between
Kelowna and Vancouver] ... and get along just nicely."

The conversation was secretly recorded by police at a Kelowna meeting
of East End Hells Angels -- members call it attending "church" -- on
Jan. 24, 2005.

During a $10-million investigation into the activities of the East End
Hells Angels, code-named Project Epandora, police covertly planted a
listening device in the chapter's Kelowna clubhouse, which gave
unprecedented access to the bikers' conversations.

The Crown alleged that Giles, laying out his vision for the Hells
Angels in Kelowna, told members they should not allow the Hells Angels
name and notoriety to be used by anyone unless it benefited the club
and its members.

Giles said in the recording that "in no way shape or form should
anybody be riding on that notoriety on our coattails. Period. And it's
happening all the time. And I'm not gonna tolerate it. Period. A few
people around this town are going to be told."

The Crown alleged the conversation was evidence of the East End
chapter being a highly structured criminal organization that uses the
power of the Hells Angels patch, which is worn on the backs of
motorcycle jackets, to maintain authority and control over its territory.

A copy of the conversation, along with other intercepted
communications contained on a computer disc, was released to The
Vancouver Sun after a judge granted the newspaper's application for
access to the recording, which was entered as an exhibit at the trial
of Giles and co-accused David Roger Revell, 43, and Richard Andrew
Rempel, 24.

What is said in the recordings is in dispute and must still be
determined by the trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Justice Anne
McKenzie, who continued hearing final arguments Wednesday.

McKenzie said she will render a verdict on March 27 at the Vancouver
Law Courts.

The Crown maintained Giles, Revell and Rempel were part of a "joint
venture" involving nine kilograms of cocaine seized by police in
Kelowna over a two-day period in April 2005. The accused deny the allegation.

The Crown also alleges the three accused possessed cocaine for the
purpose of trafficking and committed a crime for the benefit of a
criminal organization -- the East End Hells Angels.

Giles' lawyer, Richard Fowler, said the East End Hells Angels set up a
clubhouse in Kelowna as a "summer house," which was nothing more than
an illegal booze can where members and their friends could "party" --
smoking marijuana, drinking and barbecuing.

Fowler said there was nothing to link Giles to the cocaine or to
suggest he had control over Revell and Rempel, and no evidence for the
judge to conclude the East End Hells Angels is a criminal
organization.

The trial is a test case of Canada's new anti-gang law being applied
to the Hells Angels in B.C.

In April 2005, police seized three kilograms of cocaine from a storage
locker in the Kelowna area, five kilograms from a secret compartment
in a car kept on a used car lot in nearby Westbank operated by Revell,
where Rempel worked and lived.

Another kilo was seized from a drug dealer's car after leaving the car
lot.

In other intercepted communications obtained by The Sun, Giles is
heard talking about his past in Montreal.

"Ten years in Montreal, two wars, huh, that's enough of
that."

The Crown contends Giles was making reference to the war in Quebec
between the Hells Angels and the rival Rock Machine biker gang, which
claimed more than 100 lives.

The charges against Giles stem from a two-year investigation led by
the RCMP, which agreed to pay a Vancouver strip-club doorman $1
million to infiltrate the East End chapter.

The man is in hiding under a new name.