INFORMANT REVEALS GAME OF CHARADES TO EVADE WIRETAPS

The Hells Angels played charades while discussing drug deals to avoid
having incriminating words caught on police wiretaps, informant
Stephane Gagne testified yesterday.

A tap to the nose means cocaine. A pantomime of smoking a cigarette
refers to hash.

Gagne said gang members knew clubhouses, offices or homes were the
target of electronic surveillance.

A sign at one bunker's front door read:

"Here, you see nothing and you hear nothing. The telephone is Enemy No. 1."

The witness at Hells Angels leader Maurice Boucher's trial also said
gang members would leave their pagers behind while taking walks
outside to discuss business. That's because pagers could easily have
their internal gizmos removed and replaced with a police microphone
if someone is working undercover for police.

Though members often wrote down instructions in notepads to avoid
speaking, many well-known gestures made things easier.

Here is a list of what Gagne mentioned in court:

- -If someone wants a kilogram of drugs, they hold out their hands as
if carrying a package, he explained.

- -If the buyer is to pay cash immediately, he makes a sign of rubbing
cash with a hand.

- -If he wants to buy on credit, which bikers call fronting the drugs
"on the arm," the buyer taps his arm.

- -If he wants cocaine, he taps the side of the nose with a finger.

- -If it is hashish, he mimics smoking a cigarette. He could also say
the word brown for hashish and green for pot.

- -If it is for PCP, he draws a line across his forehead with a finger.

- -If someone wants explosives, he puts his hand into a fist and then
opens it quickly, to mimic a blast.

- -If he wants to talk of a gun, he makes a pistol with his fingers.

- -If he wants someone to do surveillance on an enemy or to protect a
friend, he mimics binoculars to the eyes. The address and name is
then written on a piece of paper.

Though the Hells used a form of pantomime, their rivals in the Rock
Machine preferred speaking in codes.

Previous criminal trials showed they used beer words like King Kan or
a case of beer to refer to drugs.

One dealer also used circles, triangles or squares to denote cocaine,
hashish and pot.