Part four of four-part series

END OF THE ROAD FOR BIKERS

Gerald Ward told the police everything.

He told them about his drug deals worth tens of thousands of dollars.
About the mind-numbing purity of his cocaine supply. About cracking
down on losers trying to take a bite out of his business.

He even told police how terrified cops were to come near his mighty
fortress clubhouse in Welland.

The leader of the local Hells Angels spilled his guts without knowing
it.

Steven Gault of the Oshawa chapter was wearing a wire. And what Gault
heard, police heard.

Ontario's joint-forces biker enforcement unit investigated the gang
for 18 months. Surveillance. Phone taps. Raids.

It was the first time in Canadian history an executive officer of the
Hells Angels committed the greatest of outlaw biker sins: ratting out
the gang.

For the Angels, it was the end of the road.

"We had an overwhelming case; it was a crushing case, and they
folded," said federal prosecutor Tom Andreopoulos, legal team leader
of the anti-organized crime unit in Toronto.

"In my view, they were taken to the edge of the cliff and ultimately
had nowhere else to go but to fall."

Twenty-four people were charged. In less than two years, all of them,
including 15 Hells Angels, have gone through the courts with guilty
pleas or trials.

Close to a record pace for major cases.

This was no mundane drug sting. Police and the Crown were more
ambitious than that. They were after the Hells Angels club itself.
They had to prove it was a criminal organization.

That meant in several trials, prosecutors had to demonstrate a main
activity of the group was committing or facilitating serious crimes.
The types that attract minimum five-year sentences.

They focused on what Andreopoulos called the Hells Angels' true
essence. The key to its success: a sophisticated structure designed
for crime.

For decades, the bikers have protested. They are misunderstood
motorcycle fans with a club structure similar to something like Scouts
Canada, they say. Restrictions on membership. Uniforms. Badges. Ranks.

The difference is that Scouts Canada issues merit badges for tying
knots, learning CPR or swimming.

The Hells Angels have merit badges, too.

When a biker murders someone with another Angel as witness, he gets
one marked with the words "The Filthy Few."

The badges are only part of it. There's the winged death head patch,
and intelligence gathering on rivals and police. Weekly "church
meetings" and membership that excludes anyone who's ever been a police
officer or "man of colour."

"The Hells Angels is like a syndicated formula or a franchise for
success," Andreopoulos said.

"They don't deliver coffees like Coffee Time, but they deliver
cocaine."

It all makes it very hard for a Hells Angel like Ward to claim his
drug dealing has nothing to do with the gang.

"No, it has everything to do with your business," Andreopoulos said.
"That's why you've joined the Hells Angels, to allow you to do that."

Across the province, police seized 10 kilograms of cocaine in the 2006
Project Tandem raids.

Two kilograms of pure crystal methamphetamine, eight kilograms of
marijuana and 50,000 pills of ecstasy.

Those drugs poison communities. Addicts will do anything to get money
for drugs. Break-ins and auto thefts are often about getting that $40
for a half-gram of coke.

"When people say organized crime doesn't affect me, that's where it
does," said a local intelligence officer with the biker unit.

"It affects insurance rates and everything else."

The Niagara chapter was a snapshot of the national
organization.

One is part of the whole, Andreopoulos said. What was happening there
was happening everywhere.

A judge agreed.

"The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is an exceptionally well-organized,
sophisticated corporate structure which would be the envy of many
international corporations," Judge John McMahon said in September.

He found Kenneth Wagner guilty of directing others to act for a
criminal organization. Ward's right-hand man was the first in Ontario
convicted of the charge.

But the linchpin was Ward himself, found guilty last Friday of the
same criminal organization charge. He already pleaded guilty to
trafficking cocaine and possessing $304,430 in proceeds of crime.

Ward and Wagner had almost $500,000 cash between them. It was hidden
in their homes with confidential police documents. A secret police
report was also in the clubhouse.

"Ward is the poster boy of all that it means to be a Hells Angel
member," Andreopoulos said.

"Fortress Niagara was one of the most formidable ones in
Ontario."

A local intelligence officer from the Ontario biker enforcement unit
said without Gault's being a full patch member, they never would have
got to Ward.

The gang is built on trust. Most members don't reach the level of
criminality required to join the Hells Angels until their 30s.

Gault was already a member with a stamp of approval when he approached
the Niagara gang.

He was their brother.

Wagner was jailed 11 years for the criminal organization, trafficking
cocaine and possessing $150,675 in proceeds of crime.

Timothy Muise, Alain Lacroix and Richard Beaulieu all received jail
time. Ward is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

The Niagara chapter of the Hells Angels has been badly wounded, but
not entirely wiped out.

The head's been cut off, but the body is still breathing.

With Ward and Wagner in prison, leadership fell to Tim Panetta, the
last original member still standing. But even he is under pressure,
facing criminal charges for illegally importing cars.

"The Hells Angels Niagara chapter is self-perpetuating," said a local
intelligence officer.

It's a bit like pulling a bucket of water from the ocean. As soon as
the bucket is removed, water rushes in to replace what's been taken.

Commuter Hells Angels from Kitchener and Hamilton now keep the gang
alive. The chapter still has the name. The rep. The patch.

There are still addicts. There are still suppliers. There's still
money to be made from the desperate and the depraved.

"In the end, because it's a criminal organization, they will attempt
to exist in the area," another officer said.

"They're not gone."