ANGELS EXPAND IN B.C. TO FEND OFF BANDIDOS

B.C.'s rich and powerful Hells Angels motorcycle club -- whose members
largely eluded criminal charges and flew below society's radar screen
for two decades -- is expanding across the province, bolstering its
multimillion-dollar business network and cementing its territorial
stake on organized crime.

The expansion is partly to protect its turf from the Bandidos, a U.S.
motorcycle gang that has moved into Alberta and is threatening to set
up shop in B.C.

Last January, a Bandidos member was fatally shot outside a strip bar
in Edmonton where the Texas-based club has established a probationary
chapter.

Eight years ago, B.C. had 70 so-called full-patch members and five
chapters. Today, there are 95 members and seven chapters: Vancouver,
East End, Haney, White Rock, Mission, the Nomads and Nanaimo.

There is talk of a new Kelowna chapter and another one in Surrey,
where a so-called shadow support club was established months ago,
while in Prince George, the Renegades is a Hells Angels puppet club.

A predominantly white organization, the Hells Angels has roughly 2,000
members in 22 countries. Canada has more Hells Angels members per
capita than any other country, including the U.S., which has chapters
in about 20 states.

Despite portraying themselves as a harmless club of motorcycle
enthusiasts, the Angels have a fearsome reputation in the criminal
underworld.

Last year's trial of contract killer Mickie (Phil) Smith heard
evidence that one of Smith's five murder victims was Paul Percy Soluk,
33, who had ripped off Hells Angels marijuana grow-ops. Smith said he
was told by an Asian gangster who arranged the murder that it was
being done for the East End chapter of the Hells Angels.

Smith relayed the details to an undercover policeman including how the
body was chopped up by a man he called Yurik.

"He's not an Angel but he works with the Angels," Smith said of Yurik.
"I know he's done lots of hits."

Police said the Smith case underscores how Hells Angels distance
themselves from crimes that could put them behind bars for life, by
contracting out to other gangsters.

So far, Hells Angels in B.C. have avoided the violent and bloody
public turf war that erupted on Montreal streets with the rival Rock
Machine biker gang, which sparked the political will and funding to
target the bikers and prosecute them on charges of murder, extortion,
drug trafficking and making money from prostitution.

Here in B.C., the Hells Angels have operated largely unopposed by
rival biker gangs, allowing them to consolidate operations.

"They are disciplined and well led," said RCMP Insp. Bob Paulson, who
is in charge of major investigations involving outlaw motorcycle gangs.

"Arguably there are a number of murders attributed to the HA in B.C.,
but they're all kind of within their element ... there was no
spillover (to innocent bystanders)," Paulson said.

Even if there is little street warfare, ordinary B.C. residents pay a
price as increased drug trafficking and related crimes create spinoffs
as simple as rising insurance rates to cover house damage caused by
marijuana grow-ops, or inflated housing prices because gangsters will
pay cash for more than the listed price to launder money.

The huge profits reaped from the drug trade, police say, have been
used by Hells Angels to establish legitimate businesses where the
unknowing public spend their money. And many Hells Angels use nominees
- -- trusted associates who register companies in their names -- to hide
business assets, police say.

Only in the last decade has B.C.'s patchwork quilt of municipal and
RCMP police forces reorganized their attack on the Hells Angels, and
argue that a dozen or so recent successful prosecutions prove they are
finally making inroads.

In the past decade, some officers feel their superiors blew two rare
chances to turn insiders into informants and bust some top-level Hells
Angels and other high-echelon gangsters.

One of the most shocking examples was the Western Wind debacle, which is
detailed in the recent book The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs are
Conquering Canada.

The book explains how the RCMP had a chance to nail drug dealers for
$330 million worth of cocaine when a Vancouver Island fisherman
offered to help the Mounties intercept a drug shipment between
Colombians and the Hells Angels aboard the vessel Western Wind, which
was headed for Victoria.

The fisherman wanted to be paid $1 million and placed in witness
protection, but the RCMP declined the offer. U.S. authorities
intercepted the boat loaded with more than two tonnes of cocaine but
no one was ever charged, says the book, which contains sharp criticism
of the RCMP handling of the botched case.

One of those who worked on the Western Wind file was former RCMP
officer Pat Convey, now an inspector with the Combined Forces Special
Enforcement Unit.

Convey was among those critical of how the case was handled. "It
happened and I'm not going to go into it again," he said in an interview.

"Yes, I got my knuckles rapped [for speaking out in the book]. I'm not
in the RCMP any more."