GOING TO HELL?

The Hells Angels are "immersed" in Kelowna, operating legitimate
businesses as well as marijuana grow-ops, says Solicitor General Rich
Coleman. In a face-to-face interview Wednesday, the province's top
enforcer told The Daily Courier

his ministry is trying to win legal authority to publish the names of
businesses owned by the outlaw motorcycle gang and other criminal
organizations

"They (Hells Angles) are immersed here, no question about that.
They've been immersed in Canada since the mid-1970s. They own
businesses here (in Kelowna)," Coleman said

"We know of a lot of them. It wouldn't hurt for the public to know who
owns businesses in organized crime." Members or associates of the
Hells Angels motorcycle club also own a residence at Ellis Street and
Roanoke Avenue, which they use as a gathering place when members are
in town. The rich and powerful club is expanding across the province,
boosting its multimillion-dollar network and assuring its territorial
stake in organized crime

About 100 members are spread across seven chapters in B.C. -
Vancouver, East End, Haney, White Rock, Mission, the Nomads and
Nanaimo. They have plans for a new Kelowna chapter, and there's talk
of another chapter in Surrey

"These are disrespectful, uncaring criminals who want to destroy your
community. And they're tied in with the Vietnamese gangs and the
Indo-Canadian gangs and the Russian gangs," Coleman said

"Sometimes the fight crosses over, but there's a certain structure of
crime that takes place in this province." A key source of the club's
cash flow is the money it earns from grow-ops, which are prevalent in
the Central Okanagan. Members have created an infrastructure of
supply, demand, shipping and receiving, said Coleman. "Don't kid
yourself that they're some little motorcycle club that goes for a
teddy-bear drive once a year," he said

"The grow-op business . . . trades kilo for kilo for cocaine in the
U.S. It comes back into here as cocaine. It funds the meth labs that
we're dealing with; it funds the gun trade

"We know of guns that have been paid for by B.C. marijuana that have
been used to shoot at our troops overseas in peacekeeping missions.
It's that simple." Prosecutors have recently laid charges against
"significant parties" in the Hells Angels. Coleman attributes the
development to him investing $4 million worth of crime proceeds into
special prosecutions

"They're expensive files; they take a long time," Coleman said

"I don't want to piece off members of the gang or organization. I want
to go after the organization itself."