HELLS WERE FLYING IN COKE FROM B.C.: POLICE

Five More Suspects Still Sought. Surete Says Key Player Was
Sherbrooke Biker Recently Released After Megatrial Conviction

The Hells Angels used their Canada-wide connections to supply a major
drug trafficking network that operated in the lower Laurentians,
police alleged yesterday.

While revealing few details about the police operation that led to
the arrest of 18 people on Monday, the Surete du Quebec said
yesterday that two men with ties to Canada's biggest outlaw
motorcycle gang played significant roles in the network from either
end of the country.

Among those arrested was Salvatore Brunetti, 54, a full-patch member
of the Hells Angels chapter based in Sherbrooke.

In July 2004, Brunetti was a Hells Angel without a home. He was the
first member of the biker gang's so-called elite Nomads chapter to be
released from a penitentiary after almost all its members had been
convicted in the megatrials that followed the Operation Springtime
2001 roundup across Quebec.

After having served two-thirds of his three-year sentence for drug
trafficking and gangsterism, Brunetti apparently chose to move to the
Sherbrooke chapter because the Nomads chapter had been "frozen" by the gang.

(The term "frozen" designates a chapter that cannot meet the
requirement of having at least six members who are not behind bars.)

Brunetti and many of the others arrested Monday face charges of drug
trafficking in Montreal and several municipalities north of the city.
He is also charged with gangsterism and conspiracy to traffic.

According to the Surete, the drugs were alleged to have been supplied
from British Columbia by Michael Russell, 60, a pilot and resident of
Toronto. SQ Lt. Patrick Belanger said Russell has ties to the Hells
Angels in British Columbia.

Russell is alleged to have used international connections to smuggle
drugs through the port of Vancouver, Belanger said.

Drugs were packed into a private plane and flown to the airport in
St. Hubert, on the South Shore. Russell, who was arrested in
Vancouver on Monday, was always in the plane with another pilot when
the cross-country flights were made, Belanger said.

The network had been under investigation since January 2004.

When the police carried out their roundup on Monday they also
arrested Louis Pasquin, 46, a lawyer who represented Brunetti during
one of the megatrials in 2002.

The SQ investigation found a "close link" between Pasquin and
Brunetti and the network's alleged ringleader, Louis-Alain Dauphin,
53, of Mirabel, Belanger said.

Pasquin, who is also charged with gangsterism, was released on bail
on the same day as his arrest.

Five other people are still being sought on warrants in the police
investigation, dubbed Project Piranha. While carrying out search
warrants, police seized 49 kilograms of cocaine and smaller
quantities of hashish and marijuana. They also found more than
136,000 Viagra pills.