UNTOUCHABLE NO MORE

B.C.'S Notorious Hells Angels Members Are In The Crosshairs Of Both
Police And Tax Officials

Nanaimo Hells Angels president Lloyd Stennes, 64, thought the police
were knocking on his door when he answered it, gripping a metal baseball bat.

Instead, two investigators from the Canada Revenue Agency greeted the
aging Angel that day in February 2006. They demanded details of his
assets and cash flow because he is suspected of earning income
through "organized crime or other criminal activities," according to
notes in the agency's voluminous Hells Angels files.

The two-year revenue agency investigation into dozens of Hells
Angels, associates, their wives and girlfriends is indicative of the
increasing law-enforcement pressure on Canada's most notorious biker
gang as it celebrates its 25 anniversary in B.C. this weekend.

The image of the old man at the door with a bat speaks to the erosion
of reputation. The Angels are no longer untouchable.

Some of the mystique is gone but police warn that the club still
controls much of B.C.'s illicit drug trade, worth billions of dollars
annually. Indeed, the Angels have continued to spread their wings in
B.C. since the first three chapters were formed in Vancouver, White
Rock and Nanaimo on July 23, 1983.

It is only in the past two years that sophisticated multi-force
criminal probes have led to dozens of charges and convictions against
Hells Angels and associates.

The Nanaimo clubhouse where Stennes and his buddies gathered weekly
for "chapel" was seized last November under the B.C. Civil Forfeiture
Act by a heavily armed police emergency response team -- the first
such action against the gang in this province. There are still two
historic criminal cases before B.C. Supreme Court that could result
in an official declaration that the Hells Angels, with 107 B.C.
members in eight chapters, is operating as a criminal organization.

Just this week, Mission Hells Angel Brian Hall was arrested on an
extradition warrant issued after he was charged in Washington state
with conspiring to smuggle more than 1,100 kg of marijuana and
$185,000 cash across the border.

Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, who heads the RCMP's Outlaw Motorcycle Gang
unit in B.C., said police ignored B.C. bikers in their infancy.

"For a long time, they really weren't being adequately policed, but
in the last few years, we have diverted a whole bunch more resources
to them and we have reaped the benefit of that. We have gathered the
evidence, brought the evidence to the court and are showing the
courts and the public that these guys are not just a motorcycle
gang," Shinkaruk said.

For years, the Hells Angels spokesman Rickey Ciarniello would brag to
the media that no club member had been convicted of a crime in B.C.

But that all changed seven years ago, when full-patch Angels Ronaldo
Lising and Francisco Pires were found guilty of cocaine trafficking
after an unprecedented Vancouver police investigation dubbed Project Nova.

Insp. Andy Richards, now with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement
Unit, was a leader of the project, which began in the mid-1990s.

"It has been touted, since the convictions were registered in 2001,
as the first successful Hells Angels project in the province," Richards said.

"That was a significant file because I think it really served to
generate some momentum in this province and an appetite for biker
investigations."

Project Essen

The effort has involved the RCMP, the enforcement unit and various
municipal police forces.

In January 2005, while the revenue agency probe was well underway,
police announced that a covert operation called Project Essen had
resulted in trafficking and weapons charges against 10 Hells Angels,
associates and members of the Prince George puppet club called the
Renegades. Nine people later pleaded guilty, including Vancouver
president Norman Krogstad and senior Vancouver member Cedric Smith,
who The Sun revealed Friday has now disappeared and is presumed dead.

The tenth accused, Renegade president Billy Moore, was shot to death
in March 2005, two days after securing bail.

Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said this week the Moore murder
probe remains active, though no charges have been laid.

Then a few months later, in July 2005, the RCMP announced 18
full-patch Angels and associates had been charged in connection with
the largest undercover biker investigation to date -- called
E-Pandora. So far, eight people have pleaded guilty or been convicted
on some of the charges, but the two largest indictments in the
operation are still before the courts. Two accused were acquitted at trial.

A key in all three major cases was investigators' new-found ability
to recruit agents or informants willing to infiltrate the biker gang
and gather evidence that could be taken to court, Richards said.

"We've shown that they are not untouchable, that they are vulnerable
and that they can't operate with impunity necessarily."

In the early years, no one would have dared to rat them out to police.

"I think one of the victories for the police in the last decade has
been -- through a lot of hard work and a lot of coordinated effort --
I think we have come a long way in unmasking them for the public,"
Richards said. "We have seen a lot of convictions. We have seen
prison sentences. I don't think that they have this mystique in the
public arena any more, really. They have been completely unmasked.

"Their stock has certainly dropped significantly out there in the
criminal underworld. Other groups don't see them as the only game in
town any more. There are now lots of other criminal groups out there."

Some of those -- like the ultra-violent United Nations and Red
Scorpion gangs -- mimic the Angels in structure and imagery, adopting
patches, logos and special gang jewelry.

"They were what a lot of young gangsters sort of aspired to be a
decade ago. I think that has changed to a degree. I don't think they
are seen as the epitome any more because they don't operate with the
impunity that they once enjoyed," Richards said.

'A very taxing process'

Some younger gangsters are unwilling to commit to the onerous Hells
Angels entry program that requires them to start as a "hangaround,"
then become a prospect before finally being accepted as a full-patch member.

"It is a very taxing process. It is a full-time commitment and people
do it, in my view, because there is significant rewards at the end if
you are successful -- criminal rewards," Richards said.

But no one can argue that B.C. Hells Angels aren't doing well
financially. The Canada Revenue Agency documents, obtained by The
Sun, identify businesses, luxury homes, investment real estate and
hefty incomes of some of the members.

That's not counting undeclared income, which the agency says is
"either suspected or known" to be derived from illegal activity.

However, B.C.'s Hells Angels have made it known they won't go away
without a fight.

Leader Ciarniello declined to be interviewed about details of the
club's birthday celebration. But he did complain that the police
should have kept quiet about this weekend's party at the $1.1-million
Langley clubhouse and its five acres of land, owned by White Rock
chapter member Allan Debruyn's company, Hollyrock Holdings.

Both Debruyn and his company were part of the CRA investigation.

"It is a private matter," Ciarniello said. "If the police had not
made this thing public, no one would have known about it.... I
question the motives of the police in making this a public event."

Ciarniello is constantly questioning the motives of police and the
other agencies that have cracked down on him and his biker pals.

He and other Hells Angels have accused police in the Federal Court of
Canada of violating their Charter rights by colluding with the taxman
to launch financial investigations of members.

Their affidavits provide a sense of what life is like under the
microscope of police and other authorities.

The taxman pays a visit

Haney member Robert Griffis said the taxman came to his Maple Ridge
home and motorcycle shop on Jan. 26, 2006, with police in tow.

"The police officer was looking into my front door and at the outside
of my house. He said: 'You've got a pretty nice house here,' " Griffis said.

Ciarniello complained in his affidavit that security at Vancouver
International Airport had harassed him when he was travelling to
Frankfurt, Germany, with White Rock president Doug Riddoch on Nov. 28, 2005.

"While at the gate, as the passengers gathered, we noticed that we
were being observed by two Customs and Immigration Officers," Ciarniello said.

He and Riddoch, who is due in court in August on charges of break and
enter and assault, were pulled aside by the officers, who demanded to
search the luggage of the senior bikers, Ciarniello said.

"I asked why, but was given no satisfactory answer. Instead I was
informed that they wished to search our baggage in time for us to
catch our flight. I asked under what authority they felt they had the
right to detain us. In response they threatened me that if we didn't
go into the room behind us, they would take our baggage apart on the
floor where we were.

"The veiled threat was that we would miss our flight if we refused to
cooperate with the officer," Ciarniello complained. "I was falsely
arrested, unlawfully detained, subjected to abuse of power and an
unlawful search."

He said the security guards jotted down names and numbers from
Riddoch's address book. In court with Riddoch next month will be
co-accused and fellow Langley Angel Villy Roy Lynnerup, convicted
last year for trying to get through Vancouver airport security with a
loaded .38-calibre pistol.

Vancouver chapter member Rick Conway also complained in Federal Court
papers that police were helping the CRA track him. He was travelling
with fellow Angel Hal Porteous back to Vancouver from Brazil. They
were met at baggage carousel No. 5 by a revenue agent and two cops.

"I was surprised that he was able to determine when I would be
arriving back in Vancouver. It is my understanding that only the
police have access to airline flight manifest information," Conway
said, describing himself a "tattoo artist" from Mission. He is one of
the gang members before the courts in the Pandora investigation.

"The CRA officer who I dealt with was very nervous. His hands were
shaking when he served me the documents. It seemed that he was being
forced to do this and that it was not part of his normal job."

Porteous "was extremely unhappy to be served at this location and
tried to get into a verbal confrontation," the agent later wrote in
his file memo.

"Porteous made a reference that we were cockroaches which should be
stepped on."

Stennes, the Nanaimo chapter president, was also upset when he was
approached, according to revenue agency documents.

"Upon approaching the front door, a male approximately 62 years old
with brown hair and a beard opened the door brandishing an aluminum
baseball bat as he thought we were police officers," an agent wrote
in the file.

"Once the misunderstanding was corrected, the male calmed down and
was verbally identified by name and SIN to be Lloyd Stennes."

The revenue agents told Stennes he had 90 days to comply with their
demand for financial records. One of the agents was bitten on the leg
by Stennes' small white terrier as he left the residence, according
to the documents.

But despite the unwanted attention, B.C.'s original Hells Angels
still have a few things to party about on this anniversary weekend.
Their lengthy Federal Court challenge succeeded in obtaining an
out-of-court agreement with the revenue agency to withdraw its
extraordinary requests for information, ending litigation that had
resulted in thousands of pages of court files.

Their lawyers have already successfully argued in one criminal case
against the "criminal organization" label.

Despite unprecedented police resources targeting them, the Angels are
still here and growing. A new chapter formed in Kelowna in 2007, Richards said.

"We are not seeing dramatic expansion. What we are seeing in this
province is slow, incremental, measured growth. Certainly Kelowna is
an example of the expansion."

And they still have international tentacles and respect.

"We are considered to be a real Hells Angels' epicentre," Richards
said. "B.C.'s Hells Angels are still considered to be very
sophisticated. They are well-respected in the Hells Angels world,
around the world."