THE 'MOM' OF ALL RAIDS

138 Snared; Boucher Charged In 13 Murders

Hells Angels leader Maurice Boucher no longer has two first-degree-murder
charges to worry about. He has 15.

The largest operation against biker gangs in Canadian history fingered
Boucher yesterday for 13 additional killings and nabbed every member of his
elite squad, the Nomads.

Police conceded the operation won't cripple the Hells for long.

"It's going to destabilize them at least for a while," said Capt. Michel
Martin of the Surete du Quebec.

"With all the seizures of their assets, homes and cars, they're going to be
busy with their lawyers and in the courts. And we hope that they'll be in
jail for a very long time."

Police allege Boucher systematically ordered the deaths of top-level
enemies in other drug gangs over the past six years, not stopping even when
he was behind bars. And police say his orders led to the slaying of an
innocent man who responded when the assassin yelled out his first name -
Serge. The hit man was looking for another Serge, a Dark Circle member.

Suspected with Boucher in eight of the killings is his 25-year-old son,
Francis, who is already serving a year in prison on a weapons offence.

In addition to bringing charges against both Bouchers, police seized two
homes in the family's compound in Contrecoeur, on the South Shore.

The father, well known in Quebec by the nickname Mom, is already behind
bars because he faces a second trial on charges of ordering the deaths of
two prison guards in 1997.

While 138 of his gang members and affiliates were being rounded up
throughout the province yesterday, Quebec's most notorious biker sat in his
special isolation cell at Tanguay's prison for women.

Boucher, 47, is to appear in the Montreal courthouse later this week to
face the new charges. But others were being arraigned by video-conferencing
last night from the B wing of Bordeaux jail, set aside just for them.

The arrest warrants also name Gerald Matticks, a name well known to
provincial police. His acquittal in the mid-1990s because Surete officers
planted evidence during a raid led to the Poitras commission into police
wrongdoing. Matticks was sought for drug-dealing and gangsterism.

More than 2,000 police officers from the RCMP, Surete, Montreal Urban
Community police and more than 27 municipal forces took part in more than
280 searches and seizures that started at the crack of dawn. It was
organized by special regional task forces against outlaw biker gangs.

And Quebec police forces got help in Hamilton, Ont., and Vancouver to
arrest a Nomads member and a gang accountant.

Yesterday's raiders grabbed seven homes in total and 50 vehicles, including
15 motorcycles. And police laid hands on $7.5 million in cash and
biker-gang assets.

Police believe the illegal drug supply will dry up with so many dealers
behind bars.

"We know that there will be a definite impact immediately on the
drug-trafficking situation in Quebec," said Cpl. Leo Monbourquette of the RCMP.

Police said traditional investigating techniques - surveillance, wiretaps
and paid informers - were used to compile evidence before the raids took place.

Warrants targeted 42 key players, including Boucher, with numerous plots to
assassinate enemies since 1995, just after the bloody war began for control
of Quebec's illegal drug trade.

The intended victims were members of the Rock Machine and its hit squad,
the Dark Circle. Also targeted for death were those in the Alliance, a
group of drug dealers that sided with the Rock Machine against the Hells.

Boucher and the other 41 major players also face gangsterism charges that
make it illegal to belong to a criminal organization.

Boucher is named in two unsuccessful tries for a mass killing of Rock
Machine members at their clubhouses. The first took place in 1996, when a
truck painted to look like a Hydro-Quebec vehicle was driven up to a Verdun
hangout. It contained 181 kilograms of explosives. The driver was scared
off by armed Rock Machine members.

The second was in Varennes in 1997, when a package containing 130 sticks of
dynamite was delivered to a Rock Machine meeting hall.

A special six-member team of prosecutors is taking care of the arrests.
They work for the newly formed proceeds-of-crime squad.

One prosecutor in the squad said it could be possible to put 42 people on
trial at the same time for the most serious charges.

"It will be an incredible logistical challenge," Claude Girard admitted.

He is one of many provincial prosecutors who has spoken out about chronic
underfunding. But he added that the government has given the special squad
the necessary budget to deal with the Hells Angels.

"They put the resources where they think they are best, while the rest of
the system is mired in decrepitude."

McGill law professor Julius Grey said such a mass trial would be
impossible. Imagine a defence lawyer for each person accused asking
questions one after another, he suggested.

"It would last a year and a half."

The last mass trial of that size was held following the 1990 Oka crisis.

Quebec's fight against biker gangs is not cheap. The province says it has
already spent $85 million on organized crime since 1995, and another $30
million is earmarked for the special anti-biker squads in the next three years.

Public Security Minister Serge Menard said the raids were the culmination
of two years of meticulous work.

"Police decided instead of working from the bottom up in the organizations,
they had to attack the heads of the organizations. And that's why it took
so long.

"It's very frustrating," Menard said, "because the public have the
impression that the police aren't doing anything because the police aren't
talking. But I hope everybody understands now that when we aren't talking
it doesn't mean we aren't acting."

Police arrested 80 of 106 full-patch Hells Angels in the province, Menard
added. "Almost all of the full patches are in jail now."

Hells Angels lawyer Benoit Cliche walked into Surete headquarters on
Parthenais St. as police briefed reporters on the operation.

He marveled at the phalanx of television trucks parked outside.

"I'm always surprised that when I go to see a client, reporters know more
than the accused himself about the reason for the arrest," Cliche said.

"I'm not surprised that the police decided to arrest everyone. Now we're
going to see the legality of it all and examine the evidence they claim
they have."

Yesterday's sweep even included arrest warrants for a few Hells who have
disappeared and are presumed dead. They include Stephane Hilareguy and Paul
(Fon Fon) Fontaine.

The arrest warrants name every surviving member of the elite Nomads
chapter. They include Rene Charlebois, whose wedding last summer caused an
uproar because Quebec singers Ginette Reno and Jean-Pierre Ferland were the
entertainers for a largely biker-gang crowd.

The other Nomads are: David Carroll, Denis Houle, Gilles Mathieu, Richard
Mayrand, Normand Robitaille, Michel Rose, Walter Stadnick and Donald
Stockford.

And two prospective Nomads, Luc Bordeleau and Jean-Richard Lariviere, were
also targeted.

The only black member of the Hells organization was also targeted with
numerous murder charges. Gregory Woolley got around a worldwide gang rule
that no member may be of African descent because he is a favourite of
Boucher, who made him a full-patch member of the Rockers, a puppet club for
the Nomads.

One ironic twist is that a former Rock Machine member who defected to the
Hells in December, Salvatore Brunetti, is named in the arrest warrants as a
conspirator to kill members of his former gang.

At the briefing, Martin of the Surete was asked what it would take to rid
Quebec of the Hells Angels.

"An atomic bomb," he replied after thinking about it for a few seconds.
"Although they'd probably still come crawling back."