WHEN HELL COMES TO TOWN

The Hells Angels' Ontario Invasion Is Sometimes Raw And Violent, Sometimes
Slick And Quiet. Timothy Appleby And Michael Den Tandt Tell The Tales Of
Two Cities

IONA STATION, ONT. -- In the London, Ont., area, the Angels met with
resistance. And that meant war -- one that neither rival gangs nor local
law-enforcement could win

In quiet Kitchener, Ont., the Angels maintain a squeaky-clean image as the
friendly 'neighbourhood watch.' But local cocaine statistics tell a
different story

This is where the war began.

It was Oct. 22, 1999, a blustery Friday. Wayne (Wiener) Kellestine, the
grizzled boss of the St. Thomas Loners and one of the most feared bikers in
Ontario, was off to a wedding.

For weeks, the world's most powerful biker gang had courted the Loners,
hoping to assimilate them and gain a beachhead in the lucrative
Southwestern Ontario drug trade. For weeks, thanks to Mr. Kellestine's
obdurate sense of independence, they had failed.

But within moments of his 4-by-4 pulling up to the deserted crossroad in
this sleepy hamlet southwest of London, Ont., Mr. Kellestine would discover
an elemental truth about the Hells Angels: They don't take no for an answer.

The car appeared out of nowhere, moving at high speed. Inside were David
(Dirty) McLeish and Phil (Philbilly) Gastonguay, both Angels associates.
One or the other -- the court records are unclear -- opened fire on the
Kellestine vehicle with a shotgun, blowing out its windows and showering
the interior with glass. Both vehicles then raced away, the occupants
making frantic cellphone calls. The simmering feud had turned to open warfare.

That first skirmish was brief. As part of a separate investigation, RMCP
drug officers had tapped the principals' cellphones, including Mr.
Kellestine's, and within 48 hours all suspects in the botched murder bid
were behind bars.

But the unbridled violence of the clash, its openness and boldness, would
become familiar in London in the years ahead. The Hells Angels were
determined to come to this part of Ontario. But here, in marked contrast to
the rest of the province, they faced determined resistance, first from
iconoclasts like Mr. Kellestine, and then from the Hells' traditional
rivals, the Outlaws.

From 1999 to 2002, when the conflict reached a peak, beatings, brawls and
shootings became common.

"They used to drive by and taunt each other," said Detective Constable Mark
Loader, the provincial Biker Enforcement Unit's point man in London. "For
the H.A., their priority is to absorb other gangs and gain territorial
control. In order to do that, they either have to befriend or fight their
rivals."

Before it was over, this bustling city of 360,000 would see an
unprecedented -- for Ontario -- mobilization of public opinion against
outlaw bikers. The Hells Angels nonetheless succeeded in becoming the
dominant organized criminal presence in the area, as they have across Canada.

Although their formal presence in London dates back only three years, the
Hells Angels now have extensive interests in the city's strip clubs, tattoo
parlours and half-dozen exotic-massage joints (called "rub 'n' tugs" by the
locals). They or their associates hold interests in at least two car
dealerships. They're deeply involved, police say, in intimidation and
extortion. And, as in the rest of Ontario, they do a booming trade in
cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and prescription drugs.

Nowadays, London's Hells Angels and their associates rarely swill cheap
beer in dingy bars with their Harleys parked outside, sources say. They
drive BMWs and Hummers and frequent martini bars with dress codes. Their
links with legitimate businesses are extensive.

Indeed, some wealthy Angels associates here are more influential than many
full-patch gang members, sources say. They choose not to wear a patch
because "they don't want the heat," a police officer says.

But for all their wealth, the Hells Angels' hold on the city's underworld
is still founded on the threat of mayhem. In contrast to nearby communities
such as Kitchener-Waterloo -- where the Angels vigorously promote
themselves as good citizens -- intimidation, beatings and other violence,
much of it drug-related, are common.

"One guy had his ankle and wrist busted," the officer recalls. "He ran a
tattoo parlour and they wanted to take it over. So they broke the hand he
does his work with."

Violent incidents -- as many as four a month -- go unreported because the
victims are too terrified of the Angels to complain, sources say. "They not
only enforce their turf aggressively, they try to absorb others'
aggressively," Det. Constable Loader says. "You can't be a threat to them,
or you're going to meet resistance. You'll be met with confrontation."

The Hells Angels' conquest of Southwestern Ontario began, as wars often do,
with a clash of two unyielding personalities.

As the gang's ultraviolent Quebec wing plotted its big push eastward in
late 1999, London was solidly in Outlaws territory. Their clubhouse on
Egerton Street, near the Western Fairgrounds, was a local landmark. Their
leader, Mario Parente, was not a man to be shoved around.

So the Angels turned first to smaller prey.

John Coates, a 6-foot-7, 300-pound Hells Angels associate from Sherbrooke,
Que., was brought in to recruit his elder brother Jimmy, a member of the
Loners, a mid-tier biker gang in nearby St. Thomas. Along with other
Loners, Jimmy Coates appeared amenable to the overtures. Loners boss Mr.
Kellestine was furious, and forbade further contacts, let alone a change of
loyalties.

"This got back to John Coates," recalls Constable Mike Keegan, now a senior
investigator in the London RCMP's drug section. "He was incensed. His basic
view was, 'No one can tell us what to do.' "

When the breakaway Loners began making regular visits to the Sherbrooke
clubhouse, Mr. Kellestine stripped them of their colours; for good measure,
one rebel was also pistol-whipped and robbed.

After the Oct. 22, 1999, assassination attempt on Mr. Kellestine, Mr.
McLeish, Mr. Gastonguay and the two Coates brothers were charged with
conspiracy to commit murder; they eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy
to commit bodily harm.

They had also moved up in the world. Even though the murder plot failed,
the Coates brothers had earned their spurs.

"The deal was partly, 'If you do this you become a member,' " says a police
officer familiar with the case. "There was some oversight from Sherbrooke.
And when they got out and opened up their club here, John Coates was
running it."

Described as bright and a good conversationalist, the 38-year-old Mr.
Coates had grand plans for his new fief. Unlike most Ontario bikers, who
prefer to amass wealth quietly, he craved notoriety.

"He wanted to be like Sherbrooke," recalls a police officer familiar with
both Coates brothers. "Hence the gang wars, the intimidation. . . . He
wanted the H.A. in London to be just like Quebec."

When the brothers and their friends left prison and resurfaced in London as
Hells Angels prospects -- one year away from full-patch status -- in April,
2001, they quickly began making waves.

To start, Mr. Coates opened a Hells Angels clubhouse at 732 York St., just
up the road from the Outlaws clubhouse, home to eight full-patch members.
The choice of address appeared deliberately provocative.

Mr. Coates placed a sign board out front, to congratulate new members and
rail against perceived anti-biker discrimination. He also began
aggressively recruiting Outlaws to his banner.

The Outlaws pushed back, exerting intense pressure on members not to
defect. Some Outlaws switched sides and suffered violent retaliation.
Brawls were common.

"We had standoffs all the time in town, groups of people on each side,
looking to fight," a local police officer says. "There were many police
interventions."

In late June of 2001, the Outlaws clubhouse in nearby Woodstock was burned
to the ground. A month later, an Outlaws soldier was intercepted en route
to the Hells Angels clubhouse on York Street. Body armour and various
weapons, including a pipe bomb, were found in his car.

By then, the London Hells Angels were busily establishing their credentials
as extortionists and gangsters.

In July of 2001, court documents show, prospect member Douglas (Plug)
Johnstone approached Gerry Smith, a London-area car dealer entangled in a
financial dispute with a former business partner.

Wearing his Hells Angels vest, Mr. Johnstone demanded that Mr. Smith -- now
in Ontario's witness-protection program -- cough up $70,000. When Mr. Smith
brought up the legal agreements he had signed, Mr. Johnstone said, "I don't
care what they say. You're going to have to pay the money."

Some days later, Mr. Smith received two visits from Jimmy Coates. Though
not as large as his younger brother, the 39-year-old elder Coates is a big
man -- roughly 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds -- and he, too, sported his gang
colours. On his first call, he was reasonably friendly. On his second, much
less so.

"We know where you live," he told the businessman. "We know you have a
wife. We know you have a daughter."

Mr. Smith called the police.

A few days later, with investigators now monitoring every word, Mr.
Johnstone and Jimmy Coates came to Mr. Smith's home and banged on the door,
causing his wife to cower on the floor in terror. That was the cue for a
third man, a muscular Hells Angels associate named John Walkinshaw, to
introduce himself.

Mr. Walkinshaw calmly informed Mr. Smith that he didn't want "anyone to get
hurt."

At the three men's extortion trial in January of last year, London Crown
Attorney Elizabeth Maguire stressed that the bikers brandished no weapons
and never physically harmed their victim. Such was the terror inherent in
the Hells Angels death's-head logo, it wasn't deemed necessary.

"The weapon of choice was a Hells Angel," Ms. Maguire said in her final
summation. "The weapon that was held to Mr. Smith's head, his wife's head,
his daughter's head, was the Hells Angels."

All three men were found guilty and sentenced to between three and four years.

On Jan. 7, 2002 -- coincidentally the first day of the extortion trial --
the war burst back into public view with a late-night shootout between
Hells Angels supporters and Outlaws holed up at 434 Egerton, next door to
the Outlaws clubhouse.

As in the Kellestine shooting, the backdrop was an intense effort by the
Hells Angels to expand.

Throughout the previous year Hell Angels prospect members had been
aggressively -- and successfully -- recruiting Outlaws. In late November,
Outlaws David (Hammer) Macdonald and Shaun (Cheeks) Boshaw joined up. In
December, a dozen more patched over. Other Outlaws, faced with an ultimatum
of "switch sides or retire," chose to retire.

But former Outlaws club president Thomas Hughes refused to do either. So,
just after midnight, he was paid a visit by four members of the Jackals, a
belligerent Hells Angels puppet club newly established by John Coates.

Gunfire ensued. One Jackal took a bullet in the belly. "I was just going to
bed when I heard this 'pop, pop!' Then I heard tires squealing, then 'bang,
bang, bang!' " one neighbour on the normally quiet residential street told
a local paper.

Mr. Hughes was charged with four counts of attempted murder. He also faced
nearly two dozen additional charges after police found handguns,
ammunition, rifles and explosives at his home. After the attempted-murder
charges were stayed, he was sentenced to 30 months in jail.

By now, London politicians and police were under intense public pressure to
defuse the biker war. Then in January, 2002, tension rose higher still.
Word went out that Outlaws from elsewhere in Canada were travelling to
London to back up their beleaguered brothers, together with some
Texas-based Bandidos, long-time Hells Angels rivals.

The venue for the confrontation would be the 2002 London Motorcycle Show,
organized on the grounds of the Western Fair by event promoter Larry Pooler
- -- a full-patch Hells Angel, attached to the flagship downtown Toronto
chapter based at 498 Eastern Ave.

Mr. Pooler, a tattooed Santa Claus with twinkling brown eyes, a hacking
cough and gapped front teeth, says it's a ridiculous notion that a showdown
was planned. He breezily dismisses links between Ontario's Hells Angels and
their Quebec brethren, whose war with the rival Rock Machine has left 160
dead in the past decade, including two prison guards and an 11-year-old boy.

Violence and chaos, the 54-year-old biker opined in an interview at his
rambling rural home in Bobcaygeon, Ont., are endemic to Quebec society.
"Their whole society is corrupt and vicious and violent," he said. "It
always has been, since the 1600s. That's nothing new."

Law-enforcement efforts targeting the Hells Angels in Ontario are thus
nothing more than discrimination, he added. "If I was black or wore a
turban, my pockets would be lined with gold and civil suits. But I'm just a
poor-white-trash biker."

Mr. Pooler is not entirely poor. In addition to his 1992 Harley FXRT (which
he boasts is the same model used on the 1980s television series CHiPS), he
drives two cars, an Astro van and a Mercedes turbo diesel. His house and
barn sit on 81 acres of land.

In 2001 and 2002, he hosted late-night raves that attracted thousands of
paying visitors. Until 2002, his event company, 2-4 The Show Promotions,
ran London's annual motorcycle-trade show, one of the top five events of
its kind in Canada.

But all that changed abruptly one Saturday afternoon in February, 2002, a
month after the Egerton Street shooting, when 120 Outlaws and Bandidos
faced off with 110 Hells Angels and Jackals on the grounds of the Western Fair.

Some of the bikers wore body armour. Others displayed buck knives on their
belts. All wore full colours.

The Bandidos, who had ridden up Highway 401 from Detroit, arrived in a
cluster. They made a public show of greeting the Outlaws, then stalked
slowly through the show, surrounded on all sides by Hells Angels, as
surprised onlookers scurried out of the way.

A team of 40 police officers physically separated the two rival gangs, then
insisted that the Bandidos and their supporters depart. Otherwise "there'd
have been fights," says an officer who was there. "I was guessing a
shooting or a stabbing."

Mr. Pooler and others insist the police made a mountain out of a molehill.
London Police Chief Murray Faulkner says that's nonsense: "If the police
weren't there, we were in for trouble. Big-time."

Either way, the Western Fair board barred Mr. Pooler from future use of its
grounds. London Mayor Anne Marie De Cicco launched a successful campaign to
ban the London Motorcycle Show from the city as long as it's run by the
Hells Angels.

So in 2003, Mr. Pooler held his show in nearby Woodstock.

This year, due to police pressure, there was no show at all, leaving Mr.
Pooler complaining that he is being deprived of his right to make a living.
Authorities in London reject that, saying the biker is free to take his
show anywhere he chooses. If he can find a host.

"It only takes one incident like that for everybody to realize that the
economics of this is a secondary issue to the safety of people," says a
senior city official who asked to remain anonymous for fear of Hells Angels
retaliation.

"Do we have to wait till somebody gets shot here to realize that it's not
right to support stuff like this?"

If the authorities in London were by now wearying of bikers and their
battles, so too, it appears, were the protagonists. The Coates brothers'
high-profile, Quebec-style tactics risked turning the Ontario Hells Angels
into Public Enemy No. 1, just like in Quebec. And that, everyone realized,
would be bad for business.

Early in July, 2002, John Coates and his Sherbrooke Hells Angel sponsor,
George (Beau-boy) Beaulieu, were summoned to a meeting at a North Toronto
motel with Gerald (Skinny) Ward, president of the Niagara chapter, and
William (Billy) Miller, head of the North Toronto chapter.

Mr. Coates was bluntly told that "you're done" as far as London was
concerned, says a source familiar with the meeting. The Coates brothers and
a few of their close associates were moved to the Niagara chapter under Mr.
Ward.

London, meanwhile, would now come under the direct control of the North
Toronto chapter, led by Mr. Miller.

John Coates's ouster introduced a period of relative quiet, at least in
public. The plan, police say, was to cut overt ties with Quebec and get the
Angels out of the media spotlight. The unfinished war with the Outlaws was
to go on hold.

As things turned out, it never resumed. Police had begun infiltrating the
Outlaws in the late 1990s, when they were still Ontario's pre-eminent biker
gang, and the effort came to fruition just as the Angels were having their
growing pains.

The Biker Enforcement Unit inadvertently handed victory to the Hells Angels
when, on Sept. 25, 2002, it smashed Outlaws networks in 11 Ontario
municipalities in co-ordinated pre-dawn raids.

More than 50 people were charged, including most of the Outlaws' upper
echelon. The gang has never recovered. As a result, since the fall of 2002,
the Hells Angels have, despite periodic arrests, controlled London's biker
underworld.

And they are solidifying their hold. In addition to their own operations,
the Hells Angels now supply a network of up to 30 mostly Somali-born youths
who cook cocaine powder into crack and peddle it on London street corners,
sources say.

Every so often, London's Hells Angels come into public view. Dirty McLeish,
of Kellestine-shooting fame, now the London chapter's sergeant-at-arms, is
back in jail awaiting trial on numerous charges connected with a string of
small-town bank robberies last spring.

On May 1, the gang's London chapter held a big party at its headquarters at
14 Swinyard St. -- both to inaugurate the riding season, and as a
welcome-home party for Mr. Miller, who had been in jail for a year on
weapons and gaming-related charges.

But for the most part, London's Hells Angels are staying out of the public
eye. As they burrow deeper into the community and become more adept at
insulating themselves with proxies, they're getting harder to stop. The big
reason is fear -- the power of the patch.

"Guys don't want to tell," one police officer flatly declared.

"You do your six months, nine months, 18 months, get out in good time,
you're in good standing with the club. Anybody in their right mind would
take that over giving evidence and putting up with what the H.A. would do
to you."

For longer than most care to remember, a particularly irksome crack dealer
lived on grimy Weber Street West, near the Hells Angels' fortified
clubhouse. Not any more. Not after the Angels had a word with him.

"We had limousines pulling up at 3 o'clock in the morning. We had
prostitutes running down the street to get their crack," recalled neighbour
Robert Taylor, sipping an early-afternoon beer on his front porch. "The guy
was arrested many times, we had meetings, but the cops couldn't [seem to]
do anything."

So there were no complaints a couple of years ago, when the Angels
persuaded the dealer to relocate. In fact, many local residents evidently
regard the bikers as heroes.

"I call them the local Neighbourhood Watch," said retired postal worker Dan
Koeckritz, washing his camper van four doors down from the Angels'
seldom-used clubhouse, with its bricked-in front porch, surveillance
cameras, plexiglass windows and high, stockade-style spiked fence.

"There's never a problem. I've been here 23 years and I've never had a
break-in."

The clubhouse has been a fixture on the street for at least that long. It
was headquarters of the local Satan's Choice chapter before the biker gang
was swallowed up by the Hells Angels four years ago.

Just as established is its most prominent denizen, entrepreneur Andre
Watteel, a genial, heavy-set figure, who lives in nearby Cambridge and
enjoys much respect from its citizens.

Few bikers better personify the modern image the Angels are anxious to
project -- well-behaved, freedom-loving motorcycle enthusiasts who mind
their own business and cause no grief.

Mr. Watteel is variously described as president or secretary of the
11-strong Kitchener chapter, but his precise rank is, like all Hells Angels
operational details, a closely guarded secret.

The reticence reflects concern over federal anti-gang laws, police say. But
by every estimate he is the chapter's most visible and influential player,
with impeccable biker credentials.

Before he was reincarnated as a top Hells Angel, Mr. Watteel was national
president of Satan's Choice, which gained attention across the country in
the mid-1990s when it became embroiled in a firebombing war with its
Ontario rivals the Loners.

But Mr. Watteel's own criminal record is more distant. Certainly Cambridge
mayor Doug Craig sees little cause for concern. "From what I understand,
they're business people," he said of the Hells Angels. "They also donate
their time -- at Christmas they hold dinners and things like that for
disadvantaged people."

For many years, Canadian police have known the Angels to be deeply involved
in organized crime, their ranks sprinkled with drug dealers, murderers and
thieves.

Mr. Craig sees matters differently. If he and other law-abiding citizens
are complacent about having a nest of rough-looking bikers in their midst,
it's perhaps because the realignment with the Hells Angels four years ago
rang no particular alarm bells, all the murder and mayhem in Quebec
notwithstanding.

"This is not an issue I've been aware of, and I hear everything here," Mr.
Craig said. "I would suspect almost all [Cambridge] residents would agree."

He seems to believe that the local police share that perspective, but he is
mistaken. Waterloo Regional Police Chief Larry Gravill stresses the bikers'
arm's-length approach to drug trafficking.

The Hells Angels "tend not to mess up in their own backyard," he says.
"Their activities are a little more subtle. But their track record
indicates they are a very significant part of the problem. . . . And it's
happening in small-town Canada, not just the big urban centres. That's the
part people don't fully understand."

On the face of things, Mr. Craig's sunny view of the Hells Angels has a
certain logic.

In a recent Canada-wide survey of major cities, Kitchener and its
population of 190,000 was found to have the lowest crime rate. Dotted with
historical buildings and home to a fast-growing number of families fleeing
Toronto house prices, bucolic Cambridge (population 118,000) is more
peaceful still.

But the local cocaine trade, in which police believe the Angels to be
instrumental, presents a slightly different picture. While overall drug
arrests in Waterloo Region last year dropped to 536, compared with 815 in
2003, the number of cocaine-related arrests increased by 8 per cent,
reaching 122.

The use of crack -- cocaine's fiercely addictive byproduct -- has also been
fast rising, police and drug counsellors agree.

Where is all that cocaine coming from? As with most organized-crime
enterprises, success consists of insulating the generals from the foot
soldiers through a tightly knit, multilevel hierarchy that is sworn to silence.

"What we hear on the street is that 80 to 90 per cent of the cocaine is
coming through the H.A.," said a police officer attached to the local Biker
Enforcement Unit. "When you arrest someone in possession of cocaine and ask
them, it's usually the same thing: 'It's Hells Angels coke.' "

No one suggests that any Angels are standing on street corners peddling
marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines. Quite the reverse. The message being
dispatched by the Hells Angels' public-relations drive is that bikers are
solid, law-abiding citizens.

Mr. Watteel, 51, is often seen making the rounds of his string of
properties in and around Cambridge on one of his powerful motorcycles. The
centrepiece of his operations is the battered Olde Hespeler Bar and Grill,
in the old Hespeler section of Cambridge.

Business at the bar is not always brisk. During a recent lunch-time visit,
it was almost deserted save for a couple of serious, soda-sipping bikers at
the bar, one bearing the Hells Angels emblem on his jacket. But drug sales
on the premises? Perish the thought, said a regular, non-biker patron.

"I've never seen any hint of that. Anybody I know says, 'Andre's a good guy.' "

That's the opinion farther along Queen Street, at the Playfair Bowl and
Snack Bar. Echoing what almost everybody else in Cambridge seems to think,
the cafe's gregarious 63-year-old owner, Pete Moyer, offers nothing but
praise for the Hells Angels heavyweight.

"He's a decent citizen," Mr. Moyer said one recent morning as he served
breakfast to two visitors. "He's a good communicator, very
straightforward." He should know: He and Mr. Watteel both belong to the
local business improvement association.

Mr. Moyer acknowledges that when he first encountered outlaw bikers in the
early 1980s, he had some worries. But that was then. Mr. Watteel, he says,
"has left his past associations and so on, very much behind him."

Not all of Mr. Watteel's Hells Angels brethren can say the same.

In March, long-time Kitchener Hells Angels associate Jeffrey Sniveley, 37,
was sentenced to seven years in prison for attempted murder, uttering death
threats, possession of dangerous weapons and assault causing bodily harm.
Mr. Sniveley, of Jarvis, Ont., holds the status of "hangaround" -- two
levels below a "full-patch" member, with duties that consist primarily of
obeying orders from above.

In April, police in Cambridge shut down a marijuana-growing operation
allegedly operated by two members of the Red Line motorcycle club, a Hells
Angels "puppet" club with scores of members across Southern Ontario.

In May, a Kitchener judge handed a 10-year prison sentence to a cocaine
addict who admitted to a string of cross-country holdups. He needed the
money to repay the Hells Angels for drugs he had obtained, the court heard.

And in 2002, a "prospect" member of the Kitchener chapter -- one rung below
full-patch -- pleaded guilty to drug and weapon charges, including
possession of a military assault rifle.

As for the full-patch Kitchener clan -- smaller than it was a year ago,
after three members moved to other Ontario chapters -- eight of the 11 have
criminal records, chiefly involving drugs, weapons, violence and fraud.

But most of those criminal records are years old. Mr. Watteel, for his
part, has convictions for fraud, assault and possession of a restricted
weapon, but the most recent dates to 1984.

However, his connections with other top-rank Hells Angels have remained
strong over the years. One particularly close friend is big-league drug
dealer Walter Stadnick, originally from Hamilton and later a lieutenant of
Quebec Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher, jailed for life two
years ago for ordering the murder of two Quebec prison guards.

Last month, Mr. Stadnick was convicted in Montreal of drug trafficking,
gangsterism and conspiracy to commit murder.

Mr. Watteel, however, likes to project a more wholesome image -- a family
man who sponsors minor sports teams, organizes Cambridge's summer music
festival and feeds turkey to the needy at Christmas.

He and the Angels also keep the local riffraff firmly in line, said a
teenager dawdling in the lunch-time sunshine across the street from the
Olde Hespeler. "It's just that their presence is known. So you don't do
that shit around here, sell crack or whatever."

Mr. Watteel has at least 10 real-estate holdings, two of which were
acquired for $1 and $2 before being remortgaged. They include his
comfortable ranch-style home in adjoining rural Preston, where he lives
with his wife Rita and their young daughter. (The couple's 11-year-old son
died 18 months ago in a Christmas Eve accident, when he fell and broke his
neck while playing with other children.)

Along with owning two restaurants and several run-down rental properties in
Cambridge, Mr. Watteel is also listed as a director of the numbered company
that owns the Kitchener clubhouse.

Born in Brazil and raised in Paraguay, he once told a local newspaper
reporter that he prospered as a businessman in Canada after shrewdly
investing insurance money from a motorcycle accident. In the same
interview, he said he reluctantly agreed to have Satan's Choice join forces
with the Hells Angels (to become one of 193 chapters in 27 countries)
because his Quebec partners advised him that the "corporate takeover" would
be of benefit to all.

For the most part, however, Mr. Watteel appears reluctant to talk about
himself.

"He's very quiet," the mayor says. Efforts to interview him underscored
that perception.

When two visitors recently arrived unexpectedly at his home, they
encountered two other bikers in Mr. Watteel's driveway -- one bearing the
logo of the notoriously violent Sherbrooke Hells Angels chapter in Quebec,
the other a member of the Halton Foundation, another Angels puppet club.
The immediate reception was not cordial.

Emerging from his house a couple of minutes later, Mr. Watteel proved
friendly enough. But he was in a hurry, he explained; one of his friends
was just about to drive him to the airport. And in any case, he said in
brief follow-up conversations, he really didn't want to be interviewed or
photographed. Any remarks he might make are liable to be distorted, he said.

"I don't want to be misquoted or anything, so I'd just like to stay away
from the media. . . . I just don't want to get involved in a whole bunch of
bad stuff."

Mr. Watteel did suggest, however, that the Hells Angels' Quebec-Ontario
connections were being overblown. The violence that defined Quebec's biker
wars and killed about 160 people was "an isolated incident," he said, and a
reprise in Ontario is unlikely.

"Hopefully the whole world stays calm and I believe it will. . . . I know
there's a couple of hot spots, but in general it's been pretty good."