MOTORCYCLE GANG LEADER ARRESTED

Bureaucrat accused of giving rivals' addresses to Rock Machine

A government employee was arrested by police yesterday during a $5-million
drug bust that also netted an influential motorcycle gang leader.

The woman, who worked for the Quebec Ministry of Transportation, is accused
of supplying names and addresses of rival gangsters to Frederic "Fred"
Faucher, a biker who recently brokered a deal to have his Rock Machine gang
join one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world.

Police said the arrests will embarrass the gang leadership as it was
establishing credibility after becoming a probationary part of the
Texas-based Bandidos Motorcycle Club.

Yesterday's early-morning sweep through homes and cottages in Quebec City
and Montreal dismantled a suspected drug ring involving 15 associates of
the former Rock Machine gang.

Seized in the raids were guns, including a loaded .38-calibre revolver
allegedly found in the Quebec City home of Mr. Faucher, and a variety of
drugs, including cocaine, Ecstasy and PCP, police said.

Mr. Faucher negotiated the move by the Rock Machine's five chapters -- two
in Quebec and three in Ontario -- to become probationary chapters of the
Bandidos, an organization with 108 other clubs in the United States, Europe
and Australia.

Arrested along with Mr. Faucher was Marcel "Le Maire" Demers -- a founding
member of the Quebec City chapter whose nickname means "the mayor" in
English -- three of the chapter's drug couriers and several drug
distributors, according to police.

"I think Mr. Faucher and Mr. Demers are the two members with the most
influence in the old Rock Machine," said Paul Laplante, spokesman for the
joint police force unit that ran the investigation.

"We have dismantled the whole network -- the suppliers, the leaders and the
runners below them," said Sergeant Guy Ouellette, a motorcycle gang
specialist with the Surete du Quebec.

The female employee of the Quebec agency that registers the province's
drivers and vehicles is accused of passing private information to Mr.
Faucher that was allegedly used by the gang to target and locate rivals in
its six-year war with the Hells Angels over control of the province's drug
trade, said Sgt. Ouellette.

In Quebec, there is very little public access to transportation records,
unlike in some provinces, especially Ontario.

The arrest of a government employee highlights the corrupting power of
organized crime. It is not unusual for organized gangs to have government
employees on their payroll, Sgt. Ouellette said. "What is unusual is to
catch them and charge them. We have information that they have people and
links in almost every sector [of society] to help them gather
intelligence."

The timing of the arrests, coming so close to the new ties with the
Bandidos, is a coincidence, police said.

The investigation has been underway for 13 months and involved a business
associate of the gang who was recruited by police to act as a secret agent
and infiltrate the organization.

It is unlikely the dismantling of one cell of the gang will jeopardize its
arrangement with the Bandidos or seriously curtail its drug operations.
Each full gang member or two runs their own cell, clustering non-members
and business associations together to further a financial goal.

"As a police agency we cannot chase all of the cells at the same time
because we would need more resources and it is too costly. So we have to
work cell by cell," said Sgt. Ouellette.

In total investigators of the Surete, municipal forces and the RCMP have
jailed 18 of the 32 members of the Quebec City probationary chapter of the
Bandidos and 17 of the 27 members of their rivals in the Quebec City
chapter of the Hells Angels.

A truce in the war, which claimed more than 155 lives, was called publicly
in October.