INVESTIGATORS TO SIFT THROUGH HISTORIC ASHES

Birthplace of Hells in Canada; Gang members might have burned bunker
if they felt it was to be seized: police sources.

Police investigating the destruction of the Hells Angels' most
important symbol in Canada are not discounting the possibility the
gang took a scorched earth policy to their own clubhouse, sources say.

The gang's bunker in Sorel, destroyed by arson Saturday night,
represents the birthplace of the Hells in Canada. It served as the
headquarters for the gang's first chapter in Canada. The Montreal
chapter was chartered on Dec. 5, 1977, after members of a
Montreal-area biker gang called the Popeyes joined the international
gang through the support of a Hells Angels chapter in New York.

After it was chartered, the Montreal chapter used it as the launching
point to spread the gang's philosophy and set up other chapters across
Canada. Several chapters in Canada, including some as far away as
British Columbia, can trace their origins to Sorel.

Some of the gang's most influential members in Canada were at one
point part of the Montreal chapter, including founding president Yves
(Le Boss) Buteau and Maurice (Mom) Boucher.

The building is owned by a company called Anges de L'Enfer Montreal.
According to the Quebec business registry, the company is controlled
by Lionel Deschamps and Robert Bonomo, longtime members of the Hells.

As an example of its symbolic importance to the gang, the Sorel bunker
was used to host a party where several Ontario biker gangs were
initiated in a so-called "patch-over" ceremony when they joined the
Hells Angels en masse in December 2000.

One police source who spoke to The Gazette yesterday suggested a
younger generation of Hells Angels within the Montreal chapter would
have been less attached to it than their elders.

In 2001, the Montreal chapter put the property up for sale and
appeared to be heading to Blainville. But those plans were scuttled
when Blainville enforced municipal bylaws and ordered men with ties to
the gang to remove security cameras, motion detectors, bulletproof
window coverings and other fortifications used to turn a house into a
bunker.

Two police sources interviewed yesterday said the gang might have
thought little of destroying the building if they sensed it was about
to be seized by police using recently adopted legislation.

In December, Quebec passed Bill 11, giving broader powers when it
comes to seizing assets obtained through a criminal act or, in the
case of a bunker, those used to facilitate a crime. In order to allow
an asset, like a building, to be confiscated, a court would have to be
convinced a criminal "procured an appreciable financial gain" from the
crime.

Last month, the Ontario government took ownership of a Hells Angels
bunker in Oshawa through that province's Civil Remedies Act,
legislation similar to that adopted in Quebec, after a judge declared
it an "instrument of unlawful activity."

Money made from the sale of the real estate is expected to be placed
in a fund for crime victims. In March, the Ontario government
confiscated the gang's bunker in Thunder Bay using the same
legislation and in July a bunker in London was placed under a seizure
order.

In all of the Ontario cases, the actions were made while members were
charged with a crime. Sources told The Gazette they knew of no
existing seizure orders on the Sorel bunker. One speculated that
Montreal members were thinking ahead, possibly in light of the seizure
on Friday of 1,200 kilograms of explosives that had been stolen from a
quarry in the Gaspe last week.

According to the S=FBrete du Quebec, three men arrested in connection
with the theft are believed to have ties to what they described as "an
outlaw motorcycle gang." While the SQ did not identify the gang by
name, some media reports have linked the men to the Hells Angels.