ORGANIZED ATTACK TARGETS ORGANIZED CRIME

Groups Like the Hells Angels Are Being Aggressively
Pursued

Police, prosecutors, governments and agencies, like those involved in
liquor licences, banking and real estate, have been more aggressively
working together over the last year to target organized crime in B.C.

"Everybody is really coming together as a common team. I've never seen
this amount of cooperation together before," said Sergeant Larry
Butler of the Vancouver Police outlaw motorcycle gang unit.

Some of the initiatives are starting to bear fruit, such as RCMP,
municipal police and prosecutors combining efforts in the past year to
lay an unprecedented number of charges against organized crime figures.

The Vancouver Sun reported Friday that at least 45 full-patch Hells
Angels members or their associates were charged with or convicted of
offences in B.C. in the past year.

As the agencies work more together, Butler predicted more gangsters
will be targeted. "I think we're on the edge of more things
happening," he said.

The B.C. Liquor Control and Licencing Branch brought in a new policy
in August that redefines who is a "fit and proper" person to hold a
liquor licence. The B.C. Hells Angels, a wealthy and powerful group,
own many businesses in the province, and have been linked to at least
a half dozen bars in Vancouver and Kelowna.

Mark Tatchell, the branch's deputy general manager, said his agency is
now reviewing the liquor licences for 25 bars, mainly in the Lower
Mainland and the southern Interior, that police believe are run by
criminals.

The new policy also requires better background checks conducted on
anyone applying for a new licence, for a large bar that can hold more
than 150 people, "to prevent the infiltration of criminal interest,
including organized crime," said Tatchell.

The past policy required a criminal-record check on people who applied
for licences, but that was not an effective screening system because
organized crime groups often used people without convictions.

Last year, John Bryce, president of the East End chapter, listed 606
Powell St., -- which is the Drake Hotel in Vancouver -- as the address
for a numbered company he owns.

Guy Charles Stanley, a former Hells Angels who was kicked out of the
club a few years ago, is listed as a director of Champagne Charlie's
Entertainment Inc. on the B.C. corporate registry.

The building where the bar is located on Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna
was purchased Sept. 2 by Liquid Zoo Holdings; Damiano Dipopolo, a
Hells Angels East End member, is listed as a director in the company,
according to the B.C. corporate registry.

No bar licences have yet been revoked as a result of the
review.

"For the first time the liquor board has been aggressive and they are
not backing down," said RCMP Sgt. Gary Shinkaruk.

As a result of the Kelowna RCMP releasing a list of businesses linked
to the Angels in their city, Dipopolo told the Kelowna Daily Courier
in July the publicity had delayed his purchase of the Champagne
Charlie's building.

"I lost the mortgage I was going to have with the bank because they
(RCMP) singled me out," Dipopolo said. "The bank said they thought I
was a bad risk. I am not a bad risk. I am a successful
businessman."

Lyle Newton, who owns Alliford Bay Logging, said in May he was forced
to quit the Nanaimo chapter because local businesses and banks stopped
doing business with him after a series of stories in The Sun and The
Victoria Times-Colonist in 2004 identified him as a Hells Angel.

Some other businesses the newspapers identified last year as linked to
the Hells Angels have since been dissolved or are in the process of
being dissolved, or have changed hands, according to B.C.'s corporate
registry.

RCMP Supt. Marianne Ryan, chief officer of the Combined Forces Special
Enforcement Unit, said the Canadian Bankers Association is one of the
agencies that has recently started working with police.

"There's really an awakening that we need to work together here. The
results are indicative of that change in attitude," she said.

In November 2004, the superintendent of real estate for B.C. cancelled
Haney chapter member Werner Gonzalez's licence to sell homes for
"being a member of a criminal organization."

B.C. Solicitor-General John Les said federal agencies are also working
better with police in B.C., such as Transport Canada uncovering
evidence of an ecstasy lab and tipping off the RCMP. That lead
resulted in raids two weeks ago on two Richmond homes that contained
sophisticated ecstasy labs, which police said at the time were clearly
linked to an Asian organized crime group.

"There's an example of a federal agency that's waking up, smelling the
coffee, and acting appropriately," said Les.

He also said Health Canada is now better at pursuing leads from the
RCMP, for example about ingredients used to make drugs such as crystal
meth.

Municipalities are also getting involved. Some are working with police
to target building infractions, such as steel doors used to fortify
clubhouses or telltale signs of a marijuana grow-op.

In August, the mayor of Kelowna wrote a letter to the province urging
it to follow Manitoba's lead in making it illegal to wear gang
insignia inside bars.

The Manitoba legislation is being challenged in the courts, and the
outcome will likely determine whether B.C. will act on Kelowna's
request. "If that survives the courts, then we're certainly going to
be looking at bringing that in here," Les said.

The province is, however, planning to introduce civil proceeds of
crime legislation in the next few weeks, Les said. The government
hopes the proposed bill will result in more seizures of homes, cars
and other property that criminals have bought with the proceeds of
illegal activities.

"It's always been my position that the real way to attack not only
organized crime, but crime in general such as drug trafficking, is to
seize the assets," said Attorney-General Wally Oppal.

Although there has been federal proceeds of crime legislation under
the Criminal Code since 1989, B.C.'s bill will aim to tighten up some
of the weaknesses in the federal law, he said.

The province introduced a new prosecution team earlier this year to
handle complicated organized crime cases in the courts, but Oppal
wants to see prosecutors working even closer with police on these files.

"I'm more committed to working closer with the police, in fact,
putting Crown counsel in touch with police, so that's going to be a
new approach in the ministry," Oppal said.

A 2005 report on organized crime in B.C., published exclusively in The
Sun on Friday, indicates there are 108 known organized crime groups in
B.C., but police only have the resources to investigate less than 30
per cent.

So, it has become crucial for municipal police, the RCMP and U.S.
agencies, such as the DEA and FBI, to pool resources to tackle these
large cases.

"No one police department can deal with this by themselves," said
Vancouver police chief Jamie Graham, who is also head of a national
police task force on biker gangs. "There's pretty well nobody that
carries a shield and a firearm that we don't work with."

Inspector Paul Nadeau, head of the RCMP Vancouver drug section, said
grow-ops, which used to be mainly a B.C. problem, are now popping up
in large numbers across Canada -- which has forced politicians to act.

"Suddenly we have people at every level of government that are
impacted by this and are wanting to do something about it," Nadeau
said.

Police have also recruited the Financial Institutions Commission to
look at corrupt mortgage brokers and real estate agents working with
criminals involved in marijuana grow-ops, an estimated $6-billion
industry in B.C. each year.

FICom recently laid 42 fraud and forgery charges against a former
mortgage broker and two real estate agents who were allegedly using
false documents to secure mortgages.

"The police are not going to make this go away on their own. We have
formed a lot of good relationships in the last year or so with
different groups . . . like the real estate board who traditionally
may not been as keen to give us information as they are now," Nadeau
said.

Another trend is communities preparing impact statements -- such as
explaining how many fires were started in the area because of grow-ops
- -- that are read in court to try to get tougher sentences for
large-scale pot growers. "We are trying to educate the judges," Nadeau
said.

Exactly how successful authorities will be in targeting organized
crime groups, and whether those measures will be challenged in the
courts, is unclear. But B.C.'s solicitor general vows pressure will be
kept on gangs.

"I think we need to keep the heat on. We've got to develop a
reputation in British Columbia that this isn't an easy place to carry
out criminal activity," Les said.