QUEBEC INVESTED IN BREAKING BIKERS

Multimillion-Dollar Crackdown By Police, Prosecutors Jailed 67 Of
Province's 115 Full-Patch Hells Angels

When B.C. Hells Angels Ronaldo Lising and Francisco Pires were convicted of
cocaine trafficking in 2001 and sentenced to 41/2 years in prison, police
in B.C. heralded it as a major success.

One reason was that, until those two convictions, the Angels in B.C. often
boasted -- correctly -- that not a single member of their club was behind bars.

Since then, police and prosecutors have had a few more successes against
the biker gang.

But, on the whole, B.C.'s record in going after the Angels remains dismal.

Of the 95 full-patch members of the Hells Angels in B.C., only one -- White
Rock member Bryan Bell -- is currently behind bars, serving an 18-month
sentence for assault causing bodily harm in connection with the beating of
a marijuana grower in Kelowna.

Lising and Pires are both out on bail while they appeal their convictions.

In comparison, in Quebec, 67 of that province's 115 full-patch Hells Angels
members are now either behind bars or on parole. And the Bandidos biker
gang -- once a fearsome rival to the Angels -- was essentially destroyed in
Quebec after all 25 of its members were arrested and charged.

Quebec's success against the bikers came after it devoted tens of millions
of dollars to establishing special police squads to investigate the gangs
and a team of dedicated prosecutors to shepherd the cases through the courts.

Since those dedicated prosecution units were established four years ago,
almost 500 biker gang members and their associates have been charged, said
R andall Richmond, Quebec's deputy chief prosecutor for organized crime.

About 200 cases are still going through the courts, but more than 300
people have already been convicted, said Richmond, with charges stayed
against only a handful.

And while some accused were acquitted on some charges, all were convicted
of something, said Richmond, "There have been no accused who have gotten
off scot-free."

Senior biker gang experts in B.C., such as Insp. Bob Paulson of the RCMP
and Insp. Andy Richards of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit,
have called on B.C. to follow Quebec's lead and set up dedicated organized
crime prosecution teams.

The Ontario government recently announced plans to set up its own teams,
modelled on those in Quebec.

Guy Ouellette, a retired officer with the Quebec provincial police who
testifies in court as a biker gang expert, said B.C. could learn a lot from
Quebec.

And the most important?

"We learned from our mistakes," Ouellette said.

Until recently, Quebec fared nearly as badly as B.C. in going after gang
members -- despite a biker war in the 1990s that claimed more than 150 lives.

In 1995, after 11-year-old Daniel Desrocher was killed by a car bomb, the
Quebec government established a special police squad, named Carcajou, or
Wolverine.

More than 70 officers were seconded to the force from various police
departments in the province. But it was soon riven by infighting between
the provincial police, known as the Surete du Quebec (SQ), and the Montreal
force.

In 1998, Montreal's police chief pulled his officers off the squad.

Quebec also had several notable failures in the courts.

A 1995 case against several gang members for importing 26 tonnes of hashish
fell apart after a judge found SQ officers had planted evidence.

And in 1998, Maurice (Mom) Boucher -- leader of the Hells Angels Nomads
chapter and one of the primary instigators of the biker war -- was
acquitted of murder in the assassination of two prison guards the year before.

The failures convinced Quebec to scrap Wolverine in 1999 and replace it
with new "mixed regional squads" in every part of the province with
significant biker presence -- including Trois-Rivieres, Chicoutimi and
Gatineau.

Thirty separate police departments -- including the Montreal force --
joined the new teams, known by their French acronym ERM (Equipe Regional
Mixte).

But perhaps the most significant development in Quebec's war against the
bikers came in 2000, when the province established a dedicated team of
prosecutors to work exclusively on organized crime cases -- the first team
of its kind in Canada.

More than 25 provincial Crown prosecutors were freed from their normal
duties to become part of the new team, Richmond said. They joined an
existing team of 15 prosecutors, established in 1996, who handle
proceeds-of-crime cases.

"The creation of these two specialized teams of prosecutors added 45 new
prosecutors, all specialized in organized crime prosecutions," Richmond said.

In comparison, B.C. has just one provincial Crown prosecutor dedicated to
organized crime cases: Mark Levitz.

"Don't get me wrong. Mark Levitz is a hard-working, committed prosecutor,"
said Paulson. "But he's one man."

The new teams in Quebec had several advantages, Richmond said.

The first was expertise.

Organized-crime cases are far more complex than routine criminal cases,
Richmond said, and the accused often have well-funded defence teams.

Before the prosecution teams were established, organized-crime cases would
be assigned to whichever prosecutor was available in the region where the
crimes occurred -- regardless of whether that prosecutor had any background
in organized-crime cases or not.

Provincial prosecutors were also overworked, Richmond said, often forced to
divide their focus between a complex biker trial and dozens of other,
smaller cases.

Prosecutors on the new dedicated team are paired off, to ensure each major
trial has at least two -- and sometimes more -- people working together.

But the biggest change, he said is the way in which prosecutors and police
now work together.

In Quebec, like B.C., police do not have the power to lay criminal charges.
Instead, police provide a report to Crown counsel, who then decide if
charges should be laid.

Under the old system, Richmond said, a prosecutor would usually know little
about a case until police made their arrests and handed off the file.

Sometimes, he said, prosecutors would have concerns about whether the
evidence collected by police was enough to gain a conviction.

But by then, it was usually too late.

"Once someone's arrested, then the cover is blown," Richmond said. "The
police investigation becomes known and it becomes difficult to gather more
evidence at that point."

The result, he said, was that many cases fell apart at trial because the
evidence wasn't strong enough.

Under the new system, Richmond said, a prosecutor is assigned to a police
investigation as soon as the investigation begins. As the investigation
proceeds, that same prosecutor works with police, advising them on the
admissibility of certain types of evidence.

The result, Richmond said, is that police now often extend their
investigation, gathering more evidence before making arrests to help build
a more airtight case.

For example, in the past, prosecutions often relied too heavily on
criminals who agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for lighter
sentences.

Given their criminal history, the witnesses often lacked credibility with
judges or juries and the cases fell apart.

Now, Richmond said, prosecutors ensure police gather more different types
of evidence to help corroborate the story of such witnesses.

Police in Quebec, like those in B.C., have always had the ability to ask a
Crown prosecutor for legal advice during an investigation. But without a
specific prosecutor dedicated to their case, it often took a long time for
prosecutors in Quebec to get up to speed.

Sgt. Richard Bourdon, the SQ's spokesman for the ERMs, said the new system
makes it easier for police to get advice when they need it.

"They know everything the police do, and they can give advice to make sure
the case can pass the test," he said.

And, unlike in the old system, prosecutors assigned to investigations are
also the ones responsible for prosecuting those cases in court -- giving
them a personal interest in ensuring the case is strong.

The involvement of Crown in the case early on also means prosecutors are
more prepared to go to trial once the arrests are made, instead of spending
months reading police reports to get up to speed.

"Before, we'd work a year on a case and give Crown a report of 2,000 or
3,000 pages," Bourdon said. "Now, every day they receive the information.
Every day they work on this case."

The first test of the new system came on March 28, 2001, when, at dawn,
more than 2,000 police officers in Quebec fanned out across the province in
Operation Springtime, the largest biker-gang crackdown in Canadian history.

Teams of officers executed more than 280 search warrants and seizures and
arrested 138 biker gang members and their associates -- including the
entire membership of the notorious Hells Angels Nomads chapter.
Proceeds-of-crime investigators seized $7.5 million in cash, seven homes
and 50 vehicles -- including 15 motorcycles.

It was the first of several major crackdowns on bikers in Quebec.

This year alone, police in Quebec have conducted three raids against biker
gangs -- the most recent in May, when police raided 20 sites, including a
Hells Angels bunker in Trois Rivieres, and arrested 35 people.

And those raids have been followed by convictions in the courts --
including some of the most powerful figures in the Angels.

On May 5, 2002, Boucher -- ordered to face a retrial by Quebec's Court of
Appeal -- was found guilty of murdering the two prison guards and sentenced
to life in prison.

And last month, Walter Stadnick and Donald Stockford -- both national
presidents of the Angels -- were sent to prison for 20 years each after
being convicted of conspiracy to murder rival gangsters, gangsterism and
drug trafficking.

But Boucher, Stadnick and Stockford are just three of the hundreds of
bikers and associates who have been successfully prosecuted in the past
four years, Richmond said.

Perhaps the greatest sign of the strength of the cases is that the majority
of bikers charged -- upon seeing the evidence against them -- have pleaded
guilty.

B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant said he's willing to consider setting up
prosecution teams on an ad hoc basis for major investigations -- such as
was done for the Air India and missing women cases -- but he said he's
reluctant to establish a permanent team of organized-crime prosecutors.

"If the police are of the view that they are putting together a prosecution
. . . that needs a dedicated prosecution team established early, we'll do
that work," he said. "I think that is a better way to organize a
prosecution service than to have a standing unit sitting around doing
nothing except waiting for the files to come in."

Plant also said he doesn't think there is a need to hire more prosecutors.

"I think that the justice system has enough prosecutors to deal with the
range of crime," he said. "I spend more time thinking about how we can make
the justice system operate more efficiently . . . than I do arguing we need
more resources."

While provincial prosecutors handle most Criminal Code cases in B.C.,
federal Department of Justice prosecutors handle most drug cases.

Bob Prior, director of federal prosecutions in Vancouver, said there are
several federal prosecutors who work on organized-crime cases here --
including one who works out of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit
offices, providing advice to police.

But he said he is unlikely to have his prosecutors work as closely with
police here as they do in Quebec.

"One of our concerns about doing that is the loss of objectivity by the
Crown," he said. "You become part of the investigative team. And that can
be problematic when deciding whether the case should go ahead."

As a result he said, if a federal prosecutor provides advice to the police
during an investigation, a different prosecutor will usually prosecute the
case in court -- to avoid prosecutors having to defend their own advice at
trial.

"Very often, the nature of the advice becomes litigated at trial, so the
search warrants become an issue, the wiretaps become an issue -- and the
person is put in a position of defending his own work, and that's simply
not appropriate," Prior said.

However, Prior did say it would be helpful to have the amount of resources
and prosecutors that Quebec has, but "Unfortunately, we don't have the
number of bodies that they have in Quebec," he said.

Those resources have not come cheap.

Since 1995, the Quebec government has spent more than $115 million on
additional police and prosecutors to go after biker gangs.

Bourdon said success against the bikers in Quebec's courts has made victims
of the bikers more likely to come forward to police.

"Before, if someone was a victim of the Hells Angels, they didn't make a
complaint because they thought police couldn't arrest the guy," said
Bourdon. "But now it's not the case. We receive more information from the
public now than we ever received before."

Richmond agrees, saying there has been a fundamental shift in the way the
public views the bikers. "There was a time when a lot of people felt the
Hells Angels were untouchable, invincible. That was a widely held opinion,"
he said. "I think that opinion has disappeared in Quebec."

FIGHTING BACK:

How Quebec is winning the war against outlaw motorcycle gangs

Maurice (Mom) Boucher, leader of the Hells Angles Nomad chapter.

1995

Eleven-year-old Daniel Desrocher is killed by a biker-gang car bomb.

The Quebec government establishes a special police unit named Carcajou
(French for Wolverine).

1999

The Wolverine unit is scrapped amid infighting between the provincial and
Montreal police, and a series of notable failures to convict biker gang
members.

In its place new regional squads are established in areas of Quebec with
significant biker presence.

Thirty police departments join the new teams, known by their French acronym
ERM (Equipe Regional Mixte).

2000

Quebec devotes tens of millions of dollars to a team of special prosecutors
working exclusively on organized crime cases -- the first initiative of its
kind in Canada. More than 25 provincial Crown prosecutors are freed from
their normal duties to become part of the new team.

2001

More than 2,000 police officers in Quebec fan out across the province on
the same day in Operation Springtime, the largest biker-gang crackdown in
Canadian history. They are armed with more than 280 search warrants, and
arrest 138 biker gang members and their associates.

2002

The notorious Maurice (Mom) Boucher, leader of the Hells Angels Nomads
chapter, is found guilty of murdering two prison guards and sentenced to
life in prison.

2004

Today in Quebec, 67 of the province's 115 full-patch Hells Angels are
either behind bars or on parole.

All 25 members of the rival Bandidos biker gang have been arrested and charged.