POLICE SEIZE NANAIMO BIKER LAIR

NANAIMO -- A heavily armed police emergency response team seized the
Nanaimo Hells Angels clubhouse Friday as part of a provincial
government crackdown on organized crime.

Solicitor-General John Les said the seizure should send a clear
message to people involved in criminal activity.

"We think people will notice that maybe it's not a good idea to take
the risks involved in an unlawful lifestyle, only to have the
bling-bling taken away," Les said.

More than a dozen police officers, some armed with submachineguns,
stood guard Friday while other officers went through the two-storey
building with a video camera. Still others were loading three
Harley-Davidson motorcycles onto trucks.

In the building's backyard behind a barbed-wire fence, police set up a
command post in a trailer. Six police SUVs crowded the parking lot in
front.

Workers later set up blue metal barricades around the perimeter while
a locksmith changed the locks.

"It's another important tool for us to fight crime and it can be very
helpful, obviously, in removing the profit motive from unlawful
activity," Les said an in interview. "Quite often when you see people
living in very expensive homes and driving very expensive cars with no
obvious means of support or income, it can be very attractive to
others who might be attracted to an unlawful lifestyle."

Les said it was the first Hells Angels property seized under the B.C.
Civil Forfeiture Act, passed last year to give the government the
power to seize cash, property and assets of those who derive income
from illegal activity, including drug trafficking.

"We're going to come and seize the property, and the owner of the
property then has to explain to the court, on a reverse-onus basis,
that the assets were legally obtained," Les said.

Vancouver Hells Angels member Rick Ciarniello, who speaks for Hells
Angels in B.C., called the seizure "ridiculous" because the
legislation requires the owners to prove the property wasn't obtained
by money earned from illegal activity. "I'm not happy about it,"
Ciarniello said. "They've been coming after us for a long time."

The government was granted an order in civil court Thursday "freezing"
the Hells Angels clubhouse and its contents. A civil trial will follow
to determine whether the 96-year-old building was bought with money
derived from criminal activity or has been used for criminal activity.

The Hells Angels bought the building, at 805 Victoria Rd., in 1980 for
$50,000. Records show it is currently assessed as being worth $100,400.

The RCMP also raided the clubhouse -- a fortified wooden structure
protected by video surveillance cameras -- on Dec. 11, 2003, backed by
a search warrant.

Search warrant documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun following that
raid alleged the Nanaimo chapter of the Hells Angels was a criminal
organization under investigation for cocaine trafficking, extortion,
assault causing bodily harm, conspiring to keep a common bawdy house
and procuring.

RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Squad in
Vancouver, said Friday the seizure was "another avenue of
investigation into the Hells Angels."

He said the Hells Angels clubhouse of Vancouver's East End chapter was
previously frozen under the Criminal Code, before the province enacted
its Civil Forfeiture Act in May, 2006.

Asked if other assets of the Hells Angels could be seized, Shinkaruk
said: "We'll continue to investigate groups involved in criminal activity."

Ciarniello said the owner of the Hells Angels clubhouse in Nanaimo --
listed as Angel Acres Recreation and Festival Property Ltd. -- will
have to spend a lot of money to prove the building wasn't bought with
unlawful money, and he said that should worry other people, too. "The
fact they can do it to us, they can do it to anyone they want,"
Ciarniello said.

Asked if he was worried that the Vancouver Hells Angels clubhouse, in
Coquitlam, might be seized, he said he wasn't going to lose sleep over
it. He said police always claim the Hells Angels is a criminal
organization, but in reality "it's the people charged who are the
criminal organization -- not the Hells Angels," even though the people
charged might be Hells Angels members.

Part of the documentation filed in court to support the 2003 Nanaimo
raid was a 32-page report by an RCMP expert, Jacques Lemieux, who said
the biker club's main source of revenue was drug trafficking. The
report said many Hells Angels members were involved in importing and
manufacturing drugs, as well as operating marijuana-growing operations.

The Hells Angels are also involved in "murder, theft, possession of
stolen merchandise, extortion, gun-running and money-laundering,"
Lemieux said in the report. It noted that 82 per cent of Hells Angels
members in Canada have criminal records.

B.C. Civil Forfeiture Act facts & figures:

There are more than 60 active cases involving about $5 million in cash
and assets, including real estate and vehicles believed to represent
the proceeds of crime and other unlawful activity, currently frozen by
the B.C. Supreme Court pending the outcome of civil trials.

To date, more than $2 million in cash and assets obtained through
illegal activities have been turned over to taxpayers during the 17
months since the act was passed.

Cases are referred to the government's civil forfeiture office by
police and regulatory bodies such as the B.C. Securities Commission.

The province sues in civil court and a reverse-onus test requires the
defendants to prove they did not gain the asset from unlawful
activity. Examinations for discovery are conducted and cases are
decided on the civil standard of proof -- the balance of probabilities
- -- rather than the higher criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Once a judge decides property is forfeited, it can be sold and the
proceeds used by the government to compensate victims of crime, to
fund crime prevention programs, to remedy the effects of illegal
activity and to cover the costs of administering the act.

Concluded cases include:

* Forfeiture of $500,000 in cash recovered from an unregistered
investment scheme, which is being returned to B.C. investors who lost
money.

* The forfeiture of $240,000 cash, the proceeds of drug trafficking,
from members of a high-profile gang in the Lower Mainland.

* The forfeiture of $140,000 cash, the proceeds of drug trafficking in
Vancouver.

* The forfeiture of $100,000 cash and jewelry, the proceeds of
marijuana cultivation.

* The forfeiture of $13,500 that was being transported from Terrace to
Vancouver for drug trafficking.

Source: Ministry of the Solicitor-General