'THE ROAD TO HELL': HOW THE BIKER GANGS ARE CONQUERING CANADA

Peace River Record Gazette -- Julian Sher is a former investigative
producer with the CBC's the fifth estate, and William Marsden is the senior
investigative reporter for The Gazette in Montreal. Together they have
penned an eye-opening account of how the biker gangs have infiltrated our
country and cornered the illegal drug-trade with little or no opposition.

One glaring example is how the Hell's Angels and their affiliates have
basically taken control of our country's ports. Mike Toddington
investigated and found the bikers were employed throughout the ports. After
a thorough investigation, he was pressed by his boss to drop the cases.
Toddington decided to continue to pursue it anyways. "It was the last
decision he made as ports security chief. Fifteen days later, the ports
corporation fired him." He then urged that the government keep the veteran
ports police in an intelligence section so their years worth of valuable
knowledge would not be lost. "Instead not only did they fire all the
officers, but all their intelligence files also disappeared." This left the
ports without their own security force and it left the RCMP to begin from
ground zero all of the years of investigations into the biker's
infiltration of the ports was forever lost. The bikers had absolutely no
fear of importing drugs by the cargo-container full.

Throughout The Road To Hell, these two writers explain the rise of the
Hell's Angels throughout the country. They also explain how once the bikers
have control in an area of the province they are almost impossible to get
rid of. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges have all been
threatened and terrorized when they have crossed paths with the Hell's
Angels, with little or no repercussions. "The Angels have the best of both
worlds: a national and international network for cooperation, without the
entanglement of a top-down pyramid structure. The Angels chapters are like
terrorist cells that could teach Al Qaeda a few lessons about insulation
and protection That means each cell has to be penetrated and destroyed-and
the only way to do that is with informants."

And it is through informants that the different police forces have had any
success. Unfortunately, informants are very rare due the mortal
consequences of being caught by the bikers. If you cross them, retribution
is swift. An example of this is Michel Auger, a writer for Le Journal de
Montreal who at one time proudly stated, "Not all my readers are criminals,
but all the criminals are my readers." After upsetting Maurice "Mom"
Boucher, the head of the Hells Angels, Auger was gunned down while in a
parking lot. Miraculously he survived multiple gunshot wounds and went on
to write about his experiences in his book The Biker Who Shot Me, an
interesting, though much less comprehensive look at the bikers in Canada.

The Road To Hell is a compelling, eye-opening and timely read. Today, the
Hells Angels have over 37 chapters with close to 600 members in every major
region throughout our country. Sher and Marsden have persuasively explained
how the recent imprisonment of biker leader Boucher is too little, too
late, and how the government of Canada must take decisive action if we are
ever to be free of outlaw biker gangs and their influence on the drug-trade
in our country. In this frightening look at our country's underworld,
"murder plots, drug deals, money laundering and assassinations are brought
to life through never-before-revealed police files, wiretaps and
surveillance tapes." The timely read, The Road To Hell is available at the
Peace River Library.

2003. Average readability. Adult content. 400 pages