POLICE CHARGE 63 IN FOLLOW-UP BIKER RAID

Hells Angels Who Filled Vacuum After Arrest Of Nomads Were Target Of Sweep

MONTREAL -- Three years ago this spring, authorities cracked down on the
Hells Angels in Montreal, arresting about 120 people in the largest one-day
police operation in Canadian history and slapping them with murder and
drug-trafficking charges.

Police knew the bikers weren't going to give up easily. They began watching
to see who would pick up the slack in illegal narcotics sales. Yesterday,
in another crackdown, 63 people were charged.

In a series of raids in the Montreal area, 400 federal, provincial and
municipal police officers arrested suspects and searched homes, offices,
cheque-cashing outlets and the Agence Fantaisie Sensation 2000, a strippers
booking agency in a seedy-looking part of east-end Montreal.

It was the most sweeping police operation since Springtime 2001, which
ended the activities of the Hells Angels' elite Nomads chapter just as it
was about to clinch a near monopoly over Montreal's lucrative illicit drug
market.

This time, in a 30-month investigation, the police focused on Angels
chapters around Montreal, which have stepped in to replace the Nomads,
authorities said.

The operation dismantled four cells that sold cocaine, marijuana, hashish
and ecstasy, police said.

It came a day after police arrested a member of the Angels' Sherbrooke
chapter, Jacques Emond, and charged him with leading a Montreal
loan-sharking ring, in another sign that bikers from out of town are
filling in for the Nomads.

Police said Mr. Emond and five others operated from a north-end pawnshop
that did $3-million in business a year, lending money at an annual interest
rate of up to 300 per cent.

Those charged yesterday included 12 members of the South chapter and three
members of the Montreal chapter (which is actually based in neighbouring
Sorel).

Also charged yesterday was Normand Belanger, 54, who had been arrested in
the Springtime 2001 operation but had been temporarily released for
humanitarian reasons after the court was told he was near death from
various chronic illnesses. Of the 63 suspects named yesterday, 10 Hells
Angels were missing, leaving police to wonder if their targets had got wind
of the impending crackdown.

Retired biker investigator Guy Ouellette said the latest crackdown will
cause the Angels chapters in Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivieres to fill the vacuum.

The arrests in effect wiped out the 17-member South chapter. The remaining
five who weren't indicted yesterday are either already behind bars or on
probation.

The South chapter is the sixth and most recent in Quebec. In its clubhouse
in St-Basile-le-Grand, south of Montreal, a police raid in 1998 uncovered a
photo of Jose Theodore socializing with bikers, embarrassing the Canadians'
star goaltender.

The national clearinghouse for police data, Criminal Intelligence Service
Canada, says the South chapter was created in 1997 with bikers who had
clean criminal records in the previous five years, in an attempt to avoid
prosecution under new gangsterism laws.

Police yesterday also targeted puppet biker gangs that do the grunt work
for the more senior Hells Angels, filing charges against four members of
the Evil Ones and one of the Rockers North chapter.