OPP BRACE FOR BLOODY BIKER WAR

Ontario Cops Plan Zero Tolerance

Ontario Provincial Police plan to take a "zero-tolerance" approach to the
Hells Angels and are hoping the biker gang's expansion into the province
won't lead to the type of bloody turf war that has claimed more than 150
lives in Quebec.

"It would appear the Hells are planning to take a more aggressive role in
managing the province's drug trade and we're promising them an even more
aggressive fight to ensure their efforts are futile," OPP Inspector Ross
Bingley said yesterday.

"Obviously, we hope there will not be violence in the province. The fact
that several large, Ontario-based gangs have become Hells Angels - through
business dealings, is what it would appear to us - is a good indicator that
they're putting business first and violence second," said Bingley, manager
of the Provincial Special Squad, the OPP's anti-biker-gang squad.

Traditionally in Ontario, outlaw motorcycle gangs have coexisted in
relative harmony, added Det.-Staff Sgt. Don Bell of the anti-gang squad.

"Having said that, with the presence of the Bandidos and now the Hells
Angels, the propensity for violence is there.

"Hopefully, through the efforts of the police and our enforcement actions,"
Bell said, "we won't see the violence."

A police source said 168 members of the ParaDice Riders, Satan's Choice,
Lobos and Last Chance, all Ontario outlaw-gangs, joined the Hells Angels at
an initiation ceremony Friday night at the Hells' bunker in Sorel.

The new recruits had the red and white Deathhead - the Hells Angels symbol
of a winged skull - sewn onto their leather vests or jackets.

The patch-over came as no surprise to Ontario police, Bell said.

"We've been anticipating since the early 1990s that the Hells Angels were
coming.

"We know they've got a foothold and a presence in the drug market in
Ontario, which is a very lucrative market, and we know they've been doing
business here," Bell said.

"It was only a matter of time for them to set up a chapter, and now they've
done it in a big way. The presence of the Bandidos triggered the move. It
forced their hand," Bell said.

Friday's mass conversion means the Hells Angels now have 29 chapters, with
418 full-fledged members in Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Quebec's Hells Angels are by far the most powerful in Canada. Police allege
the Quebec chapter has influence over every chapter east of Manitoba -
basically because it created all of them.

The mass conversion of the smaller Ontario gangs gives the Hells Angels
four chapters in the greater Toronto area alone. Chapters were also created
in Oshawa, Kitchener, Windsor, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

Most of the chapters in northern Ontario were created by a complete
patch-over of the Satan's Choice, which had 98 members.

Bernie Guindon, a native of Verdun who left for Ontario in 1977 and
eventually became a member of the Satan's Choice, was patched over in Sorel
on Friday night, police said.

According to an RCMP report published in 1999, the Lobos were a very small
gang, with nine members based in Windsor. The Last Chance were described in
the same report as having "24 members (who are) active in the Toronto drug
market."

At the party in Sorel, the Hells Angels also gave out 11 patches to
prospect members to form what eventually will become a full-fledged chapter
in Niagara Falls.

That prospect chapter will be run by Wolodumir (Walter) Stadnick, 48, a
founding member of Maurice (Mom) Boucher's elite Nomad chapter in Quebec.
Stadnick, who lives in Hamilton, was once the national president of the
Hells Angels in Canada.

Perhaps the most interesting development in the whole patch-over is that
the Hells Angels have allowed Paul (Sasquatch) Porter, a former member of
the Rock Machine, to head their new Nomad chapter in Ontario.

The Hells Angels form Nomad chapters in provinces or states so that their
members are not confined by internal territorial limits placed on regular
chapters.

Porter, 37, has been a Hells Angel for barely two weeks. He was part of a
defection of up to 10 former Rock Machine members and associates who
defected to the Hells just before Christmas. On Dec. 3, 1998, Porter
pleaded guilty to two weapons charges and received a suspended sentence.

Being president of a Nomad chapter is considered prestigious among gang
members. Quebec Nomad president Boucher, 47, is thought by police to be
perhaps the most powerful Hells Angel in the province.

Porter was seen as one of the most influential members of the Rock Machine
before he defected. He created three new Rock Machine chapters in Ontario
this summer.

If anyone should have had an axe to grind against his former enemies,
Porter fits the bill. He was shot on two occasions while the Hells Angels
and the Rock Machine fought over drug turf.