WINNIPEG POLICE FEAR MOTORCYCLE GANGS MAY LOCK HORNS

WINNIPEG -- Police in Manitoba's capital are worried that a turf war may
develop between biker gangs now that the Bandidos appear to be setting up
shop alongside the local Hells Angels.

"I guess what would concern me is that we may see a rivalry similar to what
was seen in Quebec," Sergeant Cam Baldwin of the Winnipeg Police Service
said yesterday.

Until 2001, the Bandidos were known as the Rock Machine in Quebec. About
170 people, including several bystanders, were killed from 1995 to 2001
during a turf war between the Rock Machine and the Hells Angels for control
of Quebec's lucrative drug trade.

In the fall, four members of the Bandidos were handed prison sentences in
Laval, Que., on 22 charges, from gangsterism and attempted murder to drug
trafficking and arson.

"I guess [it] will be up to the Hells Angels chapter here in Manitoba to
dictate whether they'll welcome the Bandidos or whether they'll try to
eliminate them from cutting into their economics in the province," Sgt.
Baldwin said.

He and other officers showed reporters a leather vest that was seized
during the investigation of an alleged assault.

The vest bears the Bandidos name and a caricature of a man wearing a
Mexican hat and brandishing a knife and gun. It is the first hard evidence
the Bandidos are setting up a chapter in Winnipeg, Sgt. Baldwin said.

The Bandidos, which started in Texas, have chapters worldwide, including
one in Toronto. They and the Hells Angels have declared a global truce,
Sgt. Baldwin said.

But according to an expert on biker gangs, Manitobans need not worry about
the Bandidos.

"Eighteen months ago, every serious criminal who was a Bandido became a
Hells Angel," said Yves Lavigne, a onetime reporter who published four
books on organized crime, including Hells Angels at War in 1999.

"What's left now is a handful of wannabes . . . who wear the Bandidos
colours but are not really heavy criminals. They're low-level drug dealers."

The more troubling aspect, Mr. Lavigne said, is that the Bandidos' arrival
signifies that Manitoba is viewed as fertile ground for criminal
organizations, many of which are not as visible as biker gangs.

"The Bandidos have targeted Winnipeg because the word is now out in the
criminal underworld that Winnipeg is a soft touch, that the police and
Crown prosecutors are incompetent, as is the government, the Attorney-General."

That stems from the growth of the Hells Angels' presence in the city since
the late 1990s and from a failed trial of five Hells Angels associates last
year, he added.

The huge trial, involving 36 charges, fell apart after a key witness had
second thoughts about testifying and was deemed unreliable by the Crown.

"It has sent a terrible, terrible welcoming signal to the criminal element
in this country," Mr. Lavigne said.

But Manitoba's NDP government rejected that criticism. Since they were
elected in 1999, the New Democrats have worked hard to curb gang activity,
Attorney-General Gord Mackintosh said.