The Rockers Motor Club , often abbreviated as the Rockers MC , was a Canadian outlaw biker gang and support club for the larger Hells Angels Motorcycle Club .
225-535: Lasting from 1992 until 2001, the group played a significant role in the ill-famed Quebec Biker War . Acting not only as a recruitment tool to test the competence of bikers wanting to become Hells Angels, the Rockers Motor Club was also utilized to carry out numerous unlawful objectives of the Angels which included intimidation , violent assaults , and assassinations of their rivals in an effort to help
450-459: A Hells Angels puppet group known as the Evil Ones, but Kane resented having to prove himself again to a new set of bikers and decided to branch out and sell drugs, guns, and cigarettes on his own. From 1990 to 1992 he was making $ 3000 a week from drug trafficking and sold between thirty and fifty guns and accessories. Kane was very active as a gun-runner, buying illegal guns smuggled in from
675-602: A "bunch of goons on a power trip". On 15 September 1995, Richard "Crow" Émond was gunned down in a parking lot while helping his girlfriend get out of a car, becoming the first fully patched Hells Angel to be killed by the Rock Machine. Émond had just replaced Roy as the president of the Trois-Rivières chapter. On 21 September, the day after Émond's funeral, three Rock Machine members – Benoit Grignon, Daniel Paul and Pierre Patry – were killed as they tried to plant
900-582: A "hang-around" with the Nomad chapter, which is what Kane's handlers had long wanted. In order to keep him from being questioned by the Wolverine squad, the RCMP arrested Kane on 30 April 1997 and sent him to Halifax. In Halifax, Constable Townsend tried to force him to confess to MacFarlane's murder by threatening to reveal he had been an informer, and to forestall that threat, Kane informed Carroll that Townsend
1125-581: A "silent hit" on the RCMP's computers as anytime a police officer contacts an informer it causes an alarm on the central computer system of the RCMP. However, the RCMP did not become overtly concerned about what Kane was doing in New Brunswick despite the fact that Kane had not mentioned to his handlers that he was going to Halifax. On 27 February 1997, Kane and Simard killed MacFarlane in an industrial park in Halifax. MacFarlane had discovered his car
1350-514: A "very violent and cruel psychopath who can't control himself", concluding he was the prime suspect for the bombing. The RCMP stated that the fact that whoever controlled the bomb that killed Dubé was aware that there were children playing across the street fitted in with what was known of Steinert's character and with what Kane had reported. Commander André Bouchard of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal stated: "I'm convinced today that
1575-596: A Hells Angels associate, Glenn Cormier, was murdered in Quebec City. In March 1996, Kane murdered a drug dealer, Roland Lebrasseur, who refused to buy drugs from the Hells Angels. After getting over a scare caused by the killing of Desrochers, Steinert was living high at this time, receiving the "Filthy Few" patch in March 1996 awarded to those who killed for the Angels, and a full patch at the same time. Steinert
1800-443: A Montreal police detective who wanted to know who informer C-2994 was, and was so persistent in demanding the identity of C-2994 that St. Onge suspected he had been bribed by the Hells Angels, a suspicion later confirmed when the detective was arrested for taking bribes. As an informer, Kane-who was obsessed with sex-was noted for his odd behavior like calling St. Onge at about 2 am to say he just had sex with some stripper and then hand
2025-675: A Quebec prison between 1985 and 1987 awaiting first-degree murder charges for his role in the Lennoxville massacre, during which he learned some French. At the request of Carroll and Stadnick, Kane had founded a puppet club for the Angels in Toronto called the Demon Keepers Motorcycle Club. However, the Demon Keepers ended in fiasco, with the entire group being put behind bars by authorities without making
2250-430: A RICO-type law, citing concerns about civil liberties, and the closest it came was with Bill C-95 in 1997 that increased the penalties if it could be established that someone had committed a crime in the service of a criminal organization. Bill C-95 was passed in 1997 and journalists Timothy Appleby and Tu Thanh Ha of The Globe and Mail observed in 2000 that nobody had been convicted under Bill C-95 offences. In 1997,
2475-605: A Rock Machine member was shot dead as he was sitting in his van. Claude Rivard, a drug dealer for the Pelletier clan, was murdered while his car was stopped for a red light. His killers, Serge Quesnel and Richard Vallée then engaged in a car chase followed by the Montreal police, but were able to escape on foot. On 23 March 1995, Quesnel murdered an independent drug dealer associated to the Rock Machine, Richard Belcourt, by persuading him to visit Quebec City and shooting him in
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#17327763087462700-551: A badly drawn portrait of "Bela Lugosi as Dracula". The majority of the members of the Demon Keepers were in Langton's view "an array of South Shore tough guys, some of whom had already been discarded by the Evil Ones". Kane together with the other members chosen for the Demon Keepers could barely speak English, which presented major problems in Ontario as most Ontarians could not understand what they were trying to say. Kane chose as
2925-484: A bank and a notary". In 1997, Rencontres Selectes collapsed owing to a lack of sales. Kane reported in the summer of 1996 that a conflict was brewing within the Hells Angels Montreal chapter with one faction loyal to Steinert and another to Stadnick, Stockford and Carroll. On 11 May 1996 at a party in Halifax, Steinert's bodyguard, Donald Magnussen, in a moment of drunken rage had killed David Boyko,
3150-520: A bar. Hinse wished Baker " Bonne Année! " as he sat at a Hard Rock Cafe inside a luxury resort, shot him dead and then jumped though a plate-glass window. The "Hollywood dramatics" of jumping though the plate glass window led to Hinse injuring himself as he was only wearing a bathing suit and he was found bleeding on the lawn of the resort. Kane informed the RCMP that Boucher had bribed the Acapulco police to have Hinse freed and on 15 January 1995 Hinse
3375-426: A beat downtown and you saw Bob MacFarlane, you knew within hours you'd be called to that bar. Very obnoxious, very loud, very much full of himself". Another policeman stated that Carroll had put a $ 25,000 contract on McFarlane's life "because he was such an asshole". The fact that Simard kept wrecking successive vehicles presented problems about making the trip from Montreal to Halifax. Simard had wrecked his Jeep in
3600-697: A bomb outside of the Saint-Luc clubhouse of the Jokers, an Angels puppet club whose activities were previously overseen by Émond. Grignon, Paul and Patry died when a Jokers member fired a shotgun at the trio, which caused the explosive to detonate. Two other bombings were also carried out on the same day, one targeting a strip club in Laval , and other at a used car dealership in Montréal-Est . No casualties were reported in these attacks, although several cars at
3825-510: A car clash in January 1997, then wrecked his Chrysler Intrepid in another clash, and finally he wrecked the car that he rented to replace his Intrepid. Simard was able to obtain a Buick LeSabre to replace his wrecked vehicles and in that car he drove Kane out to Halifax on 24 February 1997. Along the way to Halifax, Kane and Simard were pulled over in Oromocto , New Brunswick by the RCMP under
4050-548: A case concerning outlaw bikers instead of the four or six that were normally assigned in other provinces, and those who could not handle the pressure were seen as failures by their superiors. As the outlaw bikers usually had well-paid defence lawyers, the Crown Attorneys often found themselves overwhelmed by the heavy burden of work, leading to frequent burnouts. René Domingue, the Crown Attorney who prosecuted
4275-454: A certain sum of money in exchange for testifying in court). On August 23, 1999, a Montreal Urban Community Police Detective named Benoit Roberge talked with Kane. In a few months time after that date, Kane would be under contract with the Surete du Quebec as an agent source, and not just an informant. This meant he had to detail everything he did with the Hells Angels, communicate with Roberge
4500-578: A criminal organization like the Mafia or the Hells Angels was not in itself a crime, and prosecutors could only convict a Mafioso or Hell's Angel if it could be established that they had committed a crime. Under the RICO act in the United States, membership of a criminal organization was made a criminal offence, thus making the job of American prosecutors much easier. The Chrétien government refused to pass
4725-476: A death squad. In August 1995, Kane reported it was Steinert who set off the bomb that killed 11-year old Daniel Desrochers. Kane reported: "Since that day, Steinert no longer talked about the bombs he had ordered and never again spoke about using bombs. Steinert asked some of his crew what they thought of the bombing...When they told him that they thought the murderer should be liquidated, Steinert didn't respond and became very pensive". Sher and Marsden wrote Kane
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#17327763087464950-447: A drug dealer in Halifax named Robert MacFarlane. Carroll had been the president of the Angels' Halifax chapter from 1984 to 1990, and after moving to Montreal, he remained closely involved in the operations of the Halifax chapter, regularly going back to his hometown to inspect operations. MacFarlane was known to be a trouble-maker who was constantly getting into bar fights and was described by one Halifax policeman as: "If you were walking
5175-548: A dynamite buying spree, adding that both Boucher and Steinert were furious when they learned about the dynamite-packed truck left by the restaurant. On 1 January 1995, Normand Baker, a Rock Machine member was murdered while drinking in a Hard Rock Cafe in Acapulco by the Hells Angel Francoise Hinse. Baker had been one of the killers of Daoust, and his murder while on vacation in Mexico was intended to send
5400-491: A few times a week, and testify about the things he did with the Hells Angels. In a 30-page contract Kane made with the police, he would have made upwards of $ 2 million and the total cost of his operation, including witness relocation and overtime and operating expenses for police handlers would have been over $ 8.6 million. Kane "kept them informed about what the top bikers in his circle were up to: where they were travelling; whom they were talking to; who had murdered whom and who
5625-454: A highly dangerous man who was feared by the other Angels, who was planning to murder anyone who might oppose him in his plans to take over the drug trade in Quebec. Some of the information sold by Kane to the RCMP was self-serving and incorrect, as when he named another Angel as responsible for a murder that he himself had committed in 1995. However, Kane's information was mostly accurate and is
5850-597: A hotel in Longueuil to take a vote on whether or not they wanted to take part in biker war against the Alliance. According to Sherbrooke Hells Angel-turned- Crown witness Sylvain Boulanger, the Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City chapters – Michel Langlois and Maurice Boucher of the Montreal faction, and Quebec City chapter vice-president Marc "Tom" Pelletier in particular – were strongly in favour, while only
6075-403: A jeep that was blown up. Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star , wrote the Rock Machine "wasn't really a motorcycle club at all: members didn't have to own a bike to bike. What brothers Giovannia (Johnny) and Salvatore Cazzetta sought to create was a cohesive confederation of drug-dealing groups". The Hells Angels attempted to dislodge the Rock Machine and their allies from
6300-473: A legal viewpoint as Kane continued to be involved in murders and bombings while working as an informer, which was a violation of the RCMP's rules. Sanger wrote: "It's conceivable that Verdon, St. Onge and Kane had agreed, explicitly or otherwise, to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. Not only would the Mounties have been contravening the force's regulations but breaking the law themselves had they known that Kane
6525-420: A long time resisted this pressure, claiming the existing laws were adequate to deal with the biker war and that it was just up to Quebec to apply them. Both sides had their own agenda with Quebec City using the unwillingness of the federal government to pass a RICO-type act as evidence of Ottawa's supposed indifference to Quebec, thus justifying separatism while Ottawa used the inability of Quebec City to deal with
6750-493: A major force in Montreal organized crime again. In the early 1980s, Maurice "Mom" Boucher and Salvatore Cazzetta were leaders of the white supremacist SS motorcycle gang, dominating organized crime in the Pointe-aux-Trembles district of Montreal. In 1986, following a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, Boucher joined the Quebec branch of the Hells Angels, quickly rising to become
6975-436: A member of Winnipeg's los Brovos gang, whom Stadnick was trying to persuade to join the Hells Angels. The plans to have los Brovos join the Hells Angels were aborted for a number of years as los Brovos saw Boyko's murder as an act of treachery by Hells Angels. Kane reported that Stadnick and Carroll wanted Magnussen killed as Kane stated: "This, in effect, would be the only way to prove to other biker gangs in western Canada that
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7200-573: A member of the Rizzuto family owned a bar in the town of St. Sauveur , which by 1997 had been so successful that Carroll had started building condos in St. Sauveur as it was "a great chance to launder a bit of money". On 3 May 1996, Kane told his handlers that Stockford had arranged for a drug courier to go Montreal to Toronto with one kilogram of cocaine; about 1, 000 ecstasy pills; and four kilograms of Hashish . In September 1996, Josée discovered that Kane
7425-461: A murder that he would be acquitted for, the RCMP would drop Kane as an informant. On 18 December 1998, Judge Cachione who become notably annoyed with the confusing and contradictory statements from various policemen about whether Blinn and Hutley had picked Kane out of a line-up or not, threw the entire case out, saying the Crown's conduct had been so "egregious" that it would violate Kane's rights under
7650-469: A piece of shit, you interrogate him in a motel-you don't bring him to the fucking Ritz". Bouchard stated he left Operation Carcajou in 1996 out of disgust with the uncooperative attitude of the Sûreté du Québec , saying: "They were doing secret jobs. We didn't know. We found out the next morning: there'd be seven guys in the cells. Where the fuck did they come from? That's when it got a little rough". Despite
7875-476: A plan to ship drugs from Montreal to the Golden Horseshoe (i.e. greater Toronto area). Kane reported: "Their goal was to take a big part of the Toronto drug market". On 23 February 1996, Kane reported to his handlers that his patron Steinet had been promoted up to a "full patch" Hells Angels despite the way that Boucher had considered expelling him in January 1996 and that Gerald Matticks , the boss of
8100-467: A power grab, and the RCMP and Sûreté du Québec, only interested in ensuring that the blame for the continuing biker war fell on the other service. The Poitras commission spoke of "a virtual police war was being waged" inside the Carcajou squad with the detectives from the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec openly feuding with each other. The Poitras blasted the chief of the Carcajou squad, Michel Arcand of
8325-473: A prospect, where they get a half patch that shows the chapter's title. If they continue to perform well, they become a full patch member and get the Winged Death Head emblem. Kane had to work as a bodyguard and a chauffeur to Carroll and Stadnick; as a "mule" delivering drugs, prostitutes and guns; and paying for all their meals and drinks at restaurants and bars, in hope that he would be promoted up
8550-521: A protégé of senior Angels' leader David "Wolf" Carroll , contacted the Interpol office in Ottawa, saying he wanted to sell information to the police. Carroll had founded the Angels' chapter in Halifax in 1984, and moved to Montreal in 1990 to assist the president of the Montreal chapter, Maurice Boucher, although his French was very limited. It is generally believed that Carroll was in Montreal to assist
8775-573: A pseudonym as she does not wish for her name to be known). Kane lied to both women to explain his frequent absences as he maintained that his work required him to be away often. Patricia was also unaware that Kane was working for the Hells Angels. One of Kane's associates, Roland Labrasseur, first told Patricia in early February 1996: "How can you be with Dany when he's married with three kids?" On 20 February 1996, Kane reported that Carroll had met Donald Stockford in Saint-Sauveur to discuss
9000-404: A raging bully with an extremely bad temper and a propensity for violence. When Carroll asked Kane to drive him to Halifax in March 1995, Steinert refused to allow it and the two men almost came to blows over the issue. Shortly afterwards Kane was almost exposed as an informer when he mentioned that he had been present when one of Steinert's men, Richard Lock, together with a Mafiosi had beaten up
9225-586: A rivaling outlaw motorcycle gang, Rock Machine . Territory of the Hells Angels and Rock Machine began to overlap with one another which incited much conflict between the two before a large-scale gang war broke in 1994 . The Rockers were officially established a couple years before the Quebec Biker War began by high-ranking Hells Angels crime boss Mom Boucher. The aim of the club's creation was to provide more manpower and follower who were willing to commit crimes in order to become Hells Angels. In addition,
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9450-516: A shooting in Montreal. Later on 14 July, the Sûreté du Québec arrested five Rock Machine members, including Normand Baker, who were found in possession of firearms, explosives and detonators while en route to attack the South Shore clubhouse of the Evil Ones, a Hells Angels puppet club. On 15 July 1994, senior Hells Angels from across Quebec were summoned by Boucher to an emergency meeting at
9675-489: A single drug sale and Kane sought revenge by working with the police. Interpol put Kane into contact with Staff Sergeant Jean-Pierre Lévesque of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who appointed Corporal Pierre Verdon of Montreal to be his handler. At their first meeting on 4 November 1994, Kane told Verdon that the leader of the Angels in Quebec was Maurice "Mom" Boucher, whom he described as
9900-549: A single drug sale in Ontario. Kane called the Demon Keepers a gang of "no-talent imbeciles" while Carroll was often too drunk to lend him support and Stadnick was attempting to persuade the Satan's Choice and Para-Dice Riders gangs to "patch over" to become Hells Angels. Kane came to suspect that the Demon Keepers were just a ploy by Stadnick to apply pressure on Satan's Choice and the Para-Dice Riders to "patch over" to
10125-433: A small-time crook named Aimé "Ace" Simard via a gay online dating service . Unbeknownst to friends or acquaintances of either two, they engaged in a bisexual relationship with one other. Kane would eventually sponsor Simard into the ranks of Rockers MC. As a newly initiated member, Simard committed his first serious crime for them in early February 1997 after he shot and seriously wounded a drug dealer who had owed money to
10350-471: A symbol for murders is done both for the shock value and as a reflection of the fascistic, racist ideology of the Hells Angels, where Nazi Germany is idolized as a symbol of power and strength. Based on his prison experiences, Simard knew from Kane's tattoo that there was more to him than his claim to be a businessman who "invested money in bars and agencies". In response, Kane asked Simard: "How come you know this type of tattoo?" Simard then confessed that he
10575-660: A transition home. Kane was a member of the outlaw motorcycle groups known as the Condors, the Rockers , and the Demon Keepers, all of which were the puppet clubs of the Hells Angels. He had ties to Maurice Boucher , the biggest name in the Canadian Hells Angels . When his business began to suffer because he did not belong to a group, Kane approached two members of the Hells Angels, Walter Stadnick and David "Wolf" Carroll , with hope that they could get him into
10800-399: Is a liar who will be easy to discredit". Kane used a French expression " flottant dans l'huile " ("floating in oil", i.e "doing splendidly") to describe the state of affairs in the Hells Angels, but also used another French expression " le savon est chaud " ("the soap is hot", i.e trouble is brewing). With pressure in Montreal from the newly formed federal-provincial Wolverine bike squad and
11025-565: Is capable of anything". Kane told his mistress Patricia around about the same time that Simard was "a real psychopath" and he regretted letting Simard live with them. Despite his statements, Kane spent the period from 15-22 March 1997 on vacation with Simard at the Trelawny Beach resort at Montego Bay in Jamaica . During the vacation, Simard told several other Hells Angels staying at the same resort that he applied several times to join
11250-488: Is confused and doesn't know anymore what to do. He asks what is the possibility of cooperating with us at the same time specifying that he does not want, under any circumstances to cooperate with the Sûreté du Québec ." Kane used the fact that he was held in a Halifax jail awaiting charges of first-degree murder to rebut Simard's allegations that he was an informer as he told the other Hells Angels that an informer would not be denied bail. Kane complained that during his time in
11475-422: The Sûreté du Québec and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal that was supposed to end the biker war swiftly and promptly, and bring to justice those responsible for the death of Desrochers. Operation Carcajou proved to be a fiasco because of politics. From 1994 to 2003, Quebec was governed by the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) and relations between Ottawa and Quebec City, which were difficult in
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#173277630874611700-633: The Beauport chapter in late 1996. In the early 1990s, various independent gangs controlled drug sales territories in eastern and northern Montreal, including Saint Denis Street , as well as in Laval, Mascouche , Terrebonne , Saint-Sauveur , and Sainte-Adèle . A number of drug dealers and crime families, such as the Dark Circle, the Pelletier clan, the Rock Machine, the Palmers, and former members of
11925-533: The Crips gang in the United States. The Syndicate began by engaging in extortion rackets and robbing dépanneurs (convenience stores) before moving on to serve as drug dealers and killers for the Angels, becoming well known in Montreal for doing the "dirty work" that even the Angels did not want to do. Wooley was president of the Rockers, the Angels' puppet club in Montreal, and, although he could never hope to join
12150-468: The Devils Disciples , resisted the Hells Angels' attempts at monopolisation and established a coalition known as the "Alliance to fight the Angels". The subsequent guerre des motards resulted in the bombings of many establishments and murders on both sides. It claimed more than 160 lives, including Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy who was fatally injured by shrapnel as he was playing near
12375-630: The First Biker War , in which they vanquished the Outlaws from the province. However, the club was severely weakened by the Lennoxville massacre on 24 March 1985, when five members of the Angels' chapter in Laval were shot by their clubmates. As the Laval chapter of the Angels had been liquidated, the leaders of the Sorel chapter fled Canada upon learning that they were also targeted. In
12600-475: The Montreal Mafia , and as a result of his Mafia ties, the Hells Angels were unwilling to challenge the Rock Machine as long as he was leader. Cazzetta has often been described as controlling all of the organized crime in Montreal that was not controlled by the Mafia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On 26 March 1992, as part of a push to recruit more members, the Hells Angels created a puppet club ,
12825-489: The Rockers Motor Club . This was a common tactic on the part of the Angels to provide more manpower and a wider pool of followers willing to commit crimes in order to become Hells Angels. It is standard for members of a puppet club to commit most of the crimes in the hope that they will be promoted to the rank of "prospect" within the Hells Angels proper. A British policeman told journalist Patrick Lejtenyi about
13050-512: The Sûreté du Québec detectives as having dubious expense accounts. Bouchard stated: "My guys from Montreal are interrogating a source at some motel and they order a pizza and four Cokes or whatever, talk to the guy for a couple of hours and then they order a club sandwich. But the SQ guys were coming in [with invoices for stays at the] Ritz Carlton, steak dinner, wine. I was asked to sign bills for $ 800. I go 'fuck you, I'm not signing this. You interrogate
13275-475: The Sûreté du Québec , confessing that on the night of 7 August 1983, he murdered a drug dealer named Michel Beaulieu, who was behind in his payments to the Pelletier Clan. Pelletier asked that the police provide him with protection from the Angels in exchange for more information about his crimes. Ultimately, Pelletier confessed to committing 17 murders between 1983 and 1995, yet he was only convicted of
13500-425: The Sûreté du Québec , saying he had a "contemptuous" attitude about upholding the law and that it was "totally inappropriate" for him to be the director of the Carcajou squad. As a result, Arcand was sacked as the chief of the Carcajou squad. Commander Bouchard joined Operation Carcajou in 1995 and started with raiding businesses controlled by the outlaw bikers, always dressed in his full uniform in order to show he
13725-517: The West End Gang , which controlled the port of Montreal, had just imported 500 kilograms of cocaine from Columbia to sell to the Hells Angels. Kane reported that Labrasseur was working as chauffeur for Carroll and was planning to enter a cocaine treatment center." Kane reported: "It seems that Wolf [Carroll] is not happy with this situation because Labrasseur was entrusted with certain tasks by him and he has shown signs of weakness"." Kane, who
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#173277630874613950-627: The "Alliance to fight the Angels" headed by his younger brother, Harold Pelletier, whose first act was an attempt to assassinate Boucher in November 1994. Another member of the Pelletier Clan, Martin Simard, purchased enough stolen dynamite to fill a truck, which was left near Boucher's favorite restaurant by the Alliance member Martin Pellerin. The plan was to set off the explosives by remote control when Boucher arrived, killing him and everybody else in
14175-591: The Angels from within. Steinert was not included in the Nomads chapter, and was planning in October 1996 on forming his cell within the Montreal South chapter in what appeared to be a challenge to Boucher's authority. A month later in November 1996. The Rock Machine planted a bomb in the old Hells Angels bunker in St. Nicholas and the residential neighborhood where it was located was shaken by the immense force of
14400-419: The Angels over their involvement in the Lennoxville massacre the previous year. Cazzetta instead formed his own motorcycle club, the Rock Machine, with his brother Giovanni . Around this time, Quebec had earned a reputation as a hotbed of violence, and had become known within the biker world as the "Red Zone". The Italo-Canadian Cazzetta was not a member of the Mafia, but he did have a close relationship with
14625-407: The Angels proper as a black man, he maintained very close ties with them. For reasons that remain unclear, Wooley had no qualms about serving as the bodyguard for the white supremacist Boucher. However, Simard proved to be a poor witness on the stand and Wooley's trial for first degree murder ended with his acquittal. Afterwards, the Crown disavowed Simard, saying that he failed to fulfill his side of
14850-490: The Angels. As a support club (synonymously referred to by police as "puppet clubs"), the Rockers MC operated under the discretion of the Hells Angels, most notably its Quebec Nomads chapter which consisted of Canada's most reputable and high-ranking members. In the context of law enforcement, "supporter" motorcycle gangs like the Rockers Motor Club act as auxiliary organizations to their dominant affiliated gang and, like in
15075-419: The Carcajou squad decided the best way to end the war was to put the Rock Machine out of business, arguing that the Rock Machine was the weaker of the two clubs, and the war would end once the Rock Machine was removed from the scene. On 29 January 1997, seven Rock Machine members were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the failed murder plot against Boucher in 1994. In May 1997,
15300-502: The Carroll-Steinert feud as: "Riding the power plays within the Hells Angels is like trying to master the twisting schemes of ambitious-and sometimes psychotic-medieval princes. A wrong move could get you killed". Kane described Steinert to his police handlers as the most aggressive and ruthless of the Angels and as Boucher's right-hand man as he made more money than any of the other Angels. Likewise, Kane described Carroll as
15525-515: The Charter of Rights and Freedoms to have the trial continue. Some of the detectives with the Montreal police believed that the RCMP deliberately sabotaged the trial to protect Kane. On 8 August 1999, Detective Benoît Roberge of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal approached Kane about working as an agent source informer (i.e. an informer with signed contract committing the Crown to pay
15750-477: The Colombians don't trust the Hells Angels, but they do trust the Mafia." In Quebec, the power of the Mafia was limited by the fact it was only open to those who were Sicilians or of Sicilian descent . In contrast, the Quebec bikers were, and remain, mostly French-Canadian . When Cazzetta was arrested on charges on importing cocaine from the United States in 1994, the Angels saw an opportunity to challenge
15975-471: The Crown had to find a French-speaking judge, jury and Crown Attorney for his trial in Halifax. Kane's trial which began on 13 October 1998 was a farce as the judge Félix Cacchione ruled the pull-over in Oromocto was not warranted and ruled the evidence from it as inadmissible such as the computer search done by Blinn, through he did ruled that Blinn could testify that he identified Kane in a police line-up as
16200-557: The Death Riders MC assimilated into a new chapter of the Rockers Motor Club which became known as Rockers MC North. Acting on behalf of the Hells Angels, this newly-formed support charter oversaw the drug trade in Laval as well as the lower Laurentides region in Southwestern Quebec. There is wide speculation amongst journalists and law enforcement alike that much of the gang-related homicides that occurred during
16425-517: The Demon Keepers ride through small towns like Belleville in attempts to pressure local drug dealers to buy from the Demon Keepers. Kane planned to take on the Outlaws, later writing in a confession to his police handlers: "While we were there, we put together several murder plots to eliminate the Outlaws. We slapped surveillance on them and the bars they frequented". The Demon Keepers during their short existence from January to April 1994 failed to make
16650-491: The Demon Keepers' clubhouse an expensive apartment on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto. Kane's choice of a clubhouse made it impossible to set up surveillance cameras and the problems with limited parking in Toronto made it difficult for people to visit the clubhouse. The plan did not work out because Carroll was a serious alcoholic and never had money to support the gang which meant they could not intimidate drug dealers in cities such as Ottawa , Cornwall , and Toronto . Kane had
16875-539: The Evil Ones puppet gang while Steinert wanted to set up a new Hells Angels puppet gang in Kingston, Ontario with Kane to be the president. Kane's inability to chose between Carroll and Steinert led to neither scheme coming to fruition. Upon Steinert's advice, Kane left the Evil Ones and joined the Rockers Motorcycle Club, led by Gregory Woolley , a Haitian immigrant who seemingly had no issues with
17100-465: The Halifax jail that neither of his feuding patrons, Steinert or Carroll, could be bothered to visit him. Kane frequently called his wife Patricia or former wife Joséé from his jail to complain about jail life to the former while berating the latter as a poor mother to his children. The French-Canadian Kane insisted on his constitutional right to have his trial in French, which delayed the proceedings as
17325-503: The Hells Angels being his first choice. In June 1990, Josée gave birth to the first of Kane's children, a son named Benjamin. Kane's first crime was a break-and-enter when he was seventeen. By the age of eighteen, Kane joined a small biker gang based in St-Hubert named the Condors led by Patrick Lambert. While working for the Condors he earned around $ 700 a week making sure dealers had the product they needed. The Condors merged with
17550-478: The Hells Angels had driven the Rock Machine out of its almost all of their former drug markets and the Hells Angels were set upon taking control of the Rock Machine's last strongholds of Pointe-St-Charles, Verdun, Lasalle, St-Henri, Lachine, Ville-Émard and Côte-St-Paul. Kane reported that the Rockers puppet gang had set up a death squad whose chief members were Gregory Woolley , Pierre Provencher, Normand Robitaille, Stephen Falls, and Stéphane Gagné . Kane added that
17775-410: The Hells Angels politics and personalities was " bon à savoir " ("nice to know"), but did not provide the necessary evidence to lay criminal charges. Bolduc complained that the RCMP had paid C-2294 $ 2,000 per week plus $ 32,000 invested in his magazine and a $ 10,000 debt they had paid for him. On 28 March 1997, Simard killed a member of the Rock Machine, Jean-Marc Caissy, in Montreal and was arrested for
18000-410: The Hells Angels, and in the fall of 1993 decided to several members of the Rockers and other puppet gangs move to Ontario to set up a new puppet gang. Stadnick wanted chapters to be set up in Toronto, Cornwall, Ottawa, and Niagara Falls to flood the Ontario market with cheap cocaine that would force the other Ontario gangs to join the Hells Angels. The fact that Johnny Papalia , the long time boss of
18225-541: The Hells Angels, making him feel rather used. On April 1, 1994, Kane was arrested in Belleville, Ontario for having two handguns in his car, and spent the next four months in prison. Once Kane was arrested Stadnick shut down the Demon Keepers. During his time in the Quinte Detention Centre in Belleville, Kane realized that he was bisexual after he had sex with another prisoner, which left him with
18450-487: The Hells Angels. After a year passed, with Kane doing what he thought was slave labour without being invited to the MC, he became annoyed with Stadnick and Carroll for not getting him into the MC. The Hells Angels is a hierarchical organization that requires recruits start in a puppet club. If they do well, they graduate to the title of hang around, where they can't wear the patch but are considered an associate. Next, they become
18675-581: The Hells Angels. Kane was correct that Labrasseur had indeed served in the Canadian Army, but Verdon discovered from looking at his service records that he had no explosives training beyond learning how to throw a hand grenade. Sher and Marsden wrote that Labrasseur was "a sad character, a bit of a simpleton with a cocaine addiction" and that Kane's claims that he was an expert bomb-maker who built bombs set off by car alarms and pagers were fanciful at best. Kane appeared to be trying to blame Labrasseur for
18900-562: The Los Bravos, who were planning on "patching over" to become Hells Angels, which caused some problems with the Angels' plans to expand into the Prairies. Magnussen was unintelligent, and had only been recruited into the Angels because of his size, strength and brutality. Carroll become convinced that nobody could be as stupid as Magnussen was, which led him to the conclusion that Magnussen must be an undercover policeman working to destroy
19125-420: The Montreal chapter, taking over much of his business in the suburb of Verdun. As one of the club's most prominent members, Marcel Demers, became an assassination target for the Hells Angels. In December 1996, Bruno Van Lerberghe, a member of the Quebec City chapter of the Hells Angels, was killed when while he eating at a restaurant, being shot six times. In February 1997, Magnussen beat up Leonardo Rizzuto,
19350-678: The Montreal drug market, and issued an ultimatum that anyone dealing drugs in the city would have to buy from them. Maurice Boucher organized puppet clubs to persuade Rock Machine-controlled bars and their resident drug dealers to surrender their illegal drug business. In response, the Rock Machine created the Palmers MC, a Rock Machine puppet club created to counter the Hells Angels and their Rockers and Death Riders puppet clubs. The Palmers had chapters in both Montreal and Quebec City, and were led and organized by Rock Machine members Jean "Le Francais" Duquaire and André "Dédé" Désormeaux. Désormeaux
19575-434: The Montreal underworld. The Crown justified the plea bargain with Pelletier, given that he was guilty of 17 murders, on the grounds he was a "mine of information" about the underworld of Montreal. Pelletier's motives for striking a plea bargain was that the "Alliance against the Angels" was collapsing with Alliance members defecting over to the Angels, and he wanted Crown protection from the Angels. However, Pelletier violated
19800-464: The Nomads, applicants were required to commit murders, which ensured that no undercover police agents could enter the Nomads chapter. Additionally, only the highest-quality Angels who had proven themselves could join the Nomads. Several members of the Angels' Montreal chapter—which was the oldest Angels chapter in Canada, being founded in 1977—resented the way in which the Nomads came to overshadow them as
20025-511: The Papalia family who hated outlaw bikers was ailing from health problems, left Toronto open to the Hells Angels by 1994. Toronto had a number of 'Ndrangheta clans such as the Coluccio, DeMaria, Tavernese, Figliomeni, Ruso, Racco and Commisso clans, but the way that the Toronto 'Ndrangeta was divided into seven clans limited their ability to oppose the Hells Angels. Stadnick chose Kane to
20250-437: The Pelletier Clan associated with the Rock Machine, but had recently switched to the Hells Angels, and as a result the Pelletier Clan hired a hitman named Patrick Call to kill Lavoie. On 28 October 1994, Sylvain Pelletier, the leader of the Pelletier Clan, was killed by the Hells Angels, who threatened to murder any drug dealer who did not buy their supplies from them. After these killings, an increasingly murderous struggle for
20475-423: The Quebec biker war, Kane enjoyed the power as the only senior informer within the Hells Angels gave him over his RCMP handlers and his ability to halt the schemes of Hells Angels leaders such as Boucher by informing on them. Detective Benoît Roberge of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal who worked as Kane's handler in 1999-2000 stated that Kane was shaped by growing up in small town L'Acadie instead of
20700-462: The RCMP about the Hells Angels having twice sent him to meet Moreno Gallo and Tony Mucci (members of the Italian mafia) to discuss drug trafficking. Kane's reports gave unprecedented insight to the RCMP about how the inner echelon of the Hells Angels worked. Kane had a secretive, manipulative personality as he thoroughly enjoyed power and maneuvering behind-the-scenes to play off people. Throughout
20925-450: The RCMP as he was terrified of his homosexuality being exposed. Simard also turned on his lover Kane, revealing to the police that Kane had committed three murders over the last two years which caused the RCMP to sever contact with Kane for two years. Simard gave the Crown evidence that Gregory "Pissaro" Wooley — a Haitian immigrant who was working as Boucher's bodyguard — was an assassin for the Angels, saying that, despite being black, Wooley
21150-424: The RCMP had a "coded informer" whose number was C-2994 working within the ranks of the Angels. Kane reported: "After some hard thinking, Mom [Boucher] reached the conclusion that it could be one of six people". Boucher concluded that the informer could only be Steinert; two Rockers; a Hells Angel supporter; or Kane. Kane stated that he felt "very nervous" because "he was the least known to Boucher and therefore...was
21375-457: The RCMP that Steinert had been living in Montreal since he was a teenager, but that he had never taken Canadian citizenship, which led the Canadian government to go to the courts seeking an injunction to deport Steinert back to the United States. In May 1996, Steinert's bodyguard, Donald "Bam Bam" Magnussen, lost his temper at a party and murdered David Boyko, the leader of a Winnipeg biker gang,
21600-417: The RCMP, Sûreté du Québec, Ontario Provincial Police and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal known as "Operation Springtime". This, in turn, caused the gang to disband for good. In 1998, gang hitman Aime Simard testified against five Rockers MC bikers before he was sentenced to life imprisonment on three counts of second-degree murder along with other criminal offenses. Several years later, he
21825-429: The Rock Machine clubhouses in Montreal and Quebec City were raided while the police arrested 18 Rock Machine members and seized 325 kilos(716.5 lbs) of explosives, particularly TNT. The police confiscated the Montreal clubhouse after drugs were found within the premises. Reflecting the way that the Angels were winning the war, in October 1995, Harold Pelletier, one of the heads of the Pelletier Clan, turned himself in to
22050-497: The Rock Machine was arrested when a Rock Machine member turned police informer asked him to buy 15 kilos of cocaine. Cazzetta introduced the informer to Richard Matticks, the brother of Gerald Matticks of the West End Gang. Matticks told the informer he could not supply 15 kilos of cocaine on a very short notice, but did sell him 9 kilos for $ 350,000. Cazzetta was sent back to prison for violating his 1993 parole and in 1998
22275-490: The Rock Machine were the most visible parts of the "Alliance to fight the Angels", but its most influential part was the secretive Dark Circle, a group of Montreal businessmen who were secretly engaging in the drug trade. What the Dark Circle all had in common was that all of them owned bars and/or restaurants from which drugs were sold, and drug money laundered; bars in particular were a business where transactions were often in cash, lending themselves well to money laundering. it
22500-408: The Rock Machine. He spent 10 years in a U.S. prison for attempting to smuggle 200 kilograms of cocaine into Canada. Claude Vézina , who was president of the Rock Machine's Quebec City chapter at the time, became the club's new national president. Renaud Jomphe was made president of the Montreal chapter, while Marcel Demers became the president of the Quebec City chapter until eventually opening
22725-464: The Rowdy Crew MC. The Rockers were different from any other of the said HAMC puppet clubs, however, as they acted exclusively as the group's enforcement arm. When settings up the Rockers, Maurice Boucher hand-picked his ambitious Haitian-Canadian protégé Gregory "Picasso" Woolley to shepherd the outlaw biker club. Woolley, an up-and-coming crime boss who got his start as an early member of
22950-549: The Sherbrooke chapter leaders were against retaliation against their rivals. Despite Sherbrooke's initial holdout, the chapter eventually relented in August 1994, providing the Hells Angels' leadership the unanimous vote required to go to war against the Alliance. On 19 October 1994, a local drug dealer, Maurice Lavoie, was gunned down in his car while his girlfriend was wounded. Lavoie had previously been buying his wares from
23175-509: The United States via the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve, which straddles the border between Quebec and New York state, and is one of the main smuggling routes between Montreal and New York city. Kane sold guns to anyone who asked and had enough money. Between 1990-1992, Kane sold at least 50 guns, which were mostly handguns or machine guns, with an average profit of $ 300-$ 400 per gun sold. Kane's wife, Josée, grew increasingly unhappy over
23400-424: The above happenings as well as the Hells Angels business connections with top members of the Italian mafia as well as their plans to form an elite group of bikers called the Nomads. Kane told Verdon that Boucher said that the new Nomad chapter was going to be " plus rock n' roll " (more daring, exciting, and harder- edged — more at liberty to act at will rather than according to club rules). Kane told
23625-535: The aftermath of the massacre, Michel "Sky" Langois , the national president of the Canadian Hells Angels, fled to Morocco after a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of first-degree murder. Afterward, the vacuum left by the Hells Angels was filled by a number of Montreal-based organized crime groups such as the Rock Machine , and it was not until the early 1990s that the Angels became
23850-537: The approach of the Carcajou squad was the police reaction to the funeral of the Hells Angel Robert "Tiny" Richard on 29 February 1996. Out of the concern of a possible Rock Machine attack on those attending the funeral, the Carcajou squad sent some extra police officers to provide security, leading the president of provincial police unit, Luc Savard, to denounce the squad as he maintained the Sorel police force
24075-509: The assassination of Boyko wasn't ordered by the Hells Angels". Kane reported that Caroll hired André "Toots" Tousiganat in May 1996 to kill Donald "Bam Bam" Magnussen, the bodyguard to Steinert, and was very unhappy that after five months that Tousigant had failed to act. In October 1996, Kane was offered $ 10,000 by Carroll, Stockford and Stadnick to kill Magnussen. Kane knew that Steinert would have him killed if he killed Magnussen, and to get out of
24300-476: The bargain as Wooley was still a free man and ended its protection for him in 1999, placing him in the general prison population. The Angels put out a jailhouse contract on Simard's life, and in 2003 he was murdered by fellow inmates who stabbed him to death with homemade knives, inflicting over 187 stab wounds, at the federal prison where he was being held in Saskatchewan. In May 1997, Giovanni Cazzetta of
24525-564: The bars and nightclubs on York Street in Ottawa. Steinert also had plans to take over the bars, restaurants and nightclubs of Toronto, Kingston and Winnipeg. Not content with Canada, Steinert had got into contact with a New York Mafia family to send strippers from Quebec to a Mafia-owned resort in the Dominican Republic. The Hells Angels had their own surveillance unit with three vehicles equipped with hidden cameras with batteries that lasted for 72 hours that were discreetly placed on
24750-604: The best of times, were highly acrimonious. Throughout the biker war, the PQ government blamed the Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien , claiming the existing laws were insufficient to deal with bikers. PQ officials also claimed that Canada needed a tough anti-gang law modeled after the American RICO act that would make membership in criminal organizations illegal. The Chrétien government for
24975-590: The biker war as evidence of Quebec's incompetence in maintaining law and order, thus justifying federalism. The feuding between the federal and Quebec governments affected Operation Carcajou with the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec. Detectives spent their time feuding with one another and made almost no serious efforts to investigate crimes committed by the bikers as the detectives were much more interested in pursuing their vendettas against one another. One detective who served on Operation Carcajou later told journalists William Marsden and Julian Sher that Operation Carcajou
25200-466: The blast. The bunker received significant damage. Carroll ordered Kane to kill Magnussen, an order that Kane was reticent to fulfill as Magnussen was a full patch Hells Angel while Kane was only a Rocker; such a violation of Angels' etiquette could have resulted in Kane's own murder. At Kane's request, the police visited Magnussen to warn him that the other Angels were planning on killing him, but he dismissed
25425-518: The bombings that he had himself had committed. Sher and Marsden wrote that Kane probably killed Boire despite the way that he continued to pin the blame on Bouchard, a man he clearly disliked. Kane was active as a bomb-maker and he blew up the Green Stop restaurant in Châteauguay after the owner refused to pay protection money to the Hells Angels. Kane reported that Carroll together with
25650-432: The case against the West End Gang boss Gerald Matticks collapsed when detectives were caught planting evidence, blasted Operation Carcajou as a colossal waste of money in its 1998 report. The Poitras Commission in its report stated that Operation Carcajou was characterized by dysfunctional relationships, clashing egos, and bureaucratic in-fighting with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal only interested in making
25875-514: The case alone and having to do some of the police work himself. Legault stated: "The police were totally disorganised. They didn't know how to do a case like this. They didn't have the structure to properly organise the evidence." After working for 75 hours per week on the Vallée case for over a year without any help, Legault had a nervous breakdown and lost the case. Crown Attorney Lucie Dufresne found herself in 1998 taking on five defence lawyers on
26100-490: The case of five Rockers charged with killing Jean-Marc Caissey of the Rock Machine. Dufresne said: "I asked for help and I was refused. This was a huge case with all sorts of proof, electronic wiretaps, an informant. And I was told, 'There's nobody available ' ". In the middle of the trial, Dufresne suffered what she called her "humiliating" nervous breakdown. Dufrense has not tried a case since 1998, saying: "I adore it, but I am not longer capable. You push and push and push until
26325-478: The case of the Rockers, may be used to help them facilitate various criminal activities. During the year of 1995, Anglo-Canadian Hells Angels MC leader and Nomad chapter member Walter "Nurget" Stadnick instructed the Rockers Motor Club to found an auxiliary outlaw motorcycle club of their own which would be based out of out west in Winnipeg, Manitoba . The resulting one-percenter supporter club that came about
26550-628: The city in 1978. The Rockers MC was first set up in March 26 of 1992 by then-President of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) Montreal charter, Maurice "Mom" Boucher . It was during this time in Quebec that several organized crime entities were competing for drug turf across the French-speaking province. The Hells Angels MC, being among one of such prominent players in the criminal underworld, were challenged by
26775-578: The club along with his girlfriend who was also present at the scene of the attack. Not long after, Aime Simard and Dany Kane traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia on orders of high-ranking Hells Angels street lieutenant David "Wolf" Carroll to eliminate a drug dealing businessman named Robert "Bob" MacFarlane who had owed a financial debt to the Hells Angels. When the pair made their way into the province on February 27, 1997, Kane and Simard tracked down and confronted MacFarlane at an Industrial Park, who attempted to flee when they approached him. Before long, MacFarlane
27000-509: The club was also setup as a means to distance the Hells Angels from unwanted police attention that would especially come from "street-level" crimes, and - thus, were often called upon to carry out HAMC's so-called "dirty work". Several other Hells Angels supporter motorcycle clubs were established for this same purpose around and after this time including the Damners MC, Demon Keepers MC, Evil Ones MC, Jackels MC , Jokers MC, Mercenaries MC and
27225-478: The club's leader. Boucher, who became an fully patched Hells Angel on 1 May 1987, became president of the Sorel chapter later that year. One of Boucher's friends was Guy Lepage, a former Montreal police officer dismissed from the force for associating with Mafiosi, who became his main contact with the Mafia . Boucher's defection to the Hells Angels resulted in a rift with Cazzetta, who had sworn against working with
27450-420: The conclusion that he was the one who planted the bomb that had killed Desrochers, and was now worried about a police crackdown (Steinert felt no guilt about the death of a child). Kane reported: "Since that day, Steinert no longer talked about the bombs he had ordered and never spoke again about using bombs. Steinert asked some of his crew what they thought of the bombing ... When they told him they thought
27675-423: The control of the drug trade in Montreal began between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine that would not end until 2002. The favorite weapon of both biker gangs was dynamite stolen from mines and construction sites. The use of dynamite came with a high risk of wounding or killing bystanders, as well as risk to those using it as a weapon. After Pelletier was killed, the independent drug dealers of Montreal formed
27900-426: The countryside south of Montreal, where he shot him in the head by a remote rural road. Kane was later to say in 2000 that he killed Labrasseur on Carroll's orders. Kane in his reports blamed the murder on a Hells Angels-linked drug dealer, Daniel Bouchard. By contrast, Kane's former mistress, Patricia, believed that he had killed Labrasseur. However, he managed to persuade her that he had not killed Labrasseur and he
28125-504: The crime on 11 April 1997. Simard agreed to become a délateur (informer) after his arrest, and in his confession mentioned that he and Kane had killed MacFarlane. Simard also confessed that he had been Kane's lover, which came as a revelation to Kane's handlers who never suspected their relationship. Simard felt much guilt about having to testify against Kane for his role in MacFarlane's murder. Simard blamed Kane for drawing him into
28350-416: The dealership were damaged. By October 1995, the police would list 30 murders committed in Montreal as being connected to the biker war. In response to the public outrage over the death of Desrochers, the federal, Quebec, and Montreal governments announced on 5 October 1995 the much vaunted Operation Carcajou, an elite joint task force consisting of the best detectives from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
28575-489: The dilemma, asked his handlers to warn Magnussen his life was in danger. Roberge warned Magunssen that his life was in danger, but dismissed the warning as a police plot. Kane was saved when Boucher declared that since Magnussen was a full patch Hells Angel, only another full patch Angel could kill him, and not a Rocker like Kane. Kane reported that Boucher had declared as a Nomad president that Stadnick had to kill Magunssen. In February 1997, Magunssen beat up Leonardo Rizzuto,
28800-463: The gang for several years and was not even considered a hang around. Kane's luck then changed. Kane was "recruited by David (Wolf) Carroll and Walter (Nurgent) Stadnick to preside over three chapters of an Ontario puppet club called the Demon Keepers. Stadnick was unhappy about the way that the Ontario biker gangs such as Satan's Choice, the Loners, and the Para-Dice Riders all refused his offers to join
29025-558: The head half-way along the journey after pulling over on a remote rural road. Quesnel was a professional hit-man for the Trois-Rivières chapter of the Hells Angels who had murdered a drug dealer named Richard Jobin on 9 September 1993 to give himself the underworld reputation as a killer. In October 1993, Quesnel murdered another independent drug dealer, Martin Naud, by ramming a pair of scissors through one of his eyes and then used
29250-425: The house. Bouchard described the scene: "I walk in and they got a party going on in there. This was a sit-down supper, you know-booze and wine at $ 50 a bottle. Nobody's paying. And you're starting to think, what the fuck is going on here? Is this a protected bar? Ah, okay. So they never take down a Hells Angel or a Rock Machine or someone who's in the bar. They let him alone. That's not good". Bouchard also described
29475-403: The intelligence collected by him with the Sûreté du Québec , which he described as being systemically corrupt, and also with the police forces of Greenfield Park and Brossard. Kane reported that the Hells Angels had photographs of most of the Rock Machine members via police records. The Canadian journalist Daniel Sanger wrote that much of the RCMP's relationship with Kane was questionable from
29700-451: The intense desire to have more homosexual experiences after he discovered that he enjoyed having sex with men. Kane also felt that Stadnick had set him up to fail with the Demon Keepers, and he wanted revenge by becoming a police informer. After Kane was released from prison for his April 1994 weapons charges, he began to hate the Hells Angels. In July 1994, Kane started to associate with Scott Steinert , an American living in Montreal who
29925-403: The killing of MacFarane, and first learned that Kane was the RCMP's main informer within the Hells Angels. The RCMP went out of its way to protect Kane as an internal memo noted "the disclosure...has the potential to cause significant negative media attention". The RCMP was especially keen to protect Kane because Gilles Mathieu of the Nomad chapter had declared his willingness to sponsor Kane as
30150-711: The ladder obtain total control over the nation's illegal drug trade . Prior to the formation of the Angels-affiliated Rockers Motor Club in the early 1990s, another biker gang had coincidentally existed in the same area known as the Montreal Rockers Motorcycle Club, also nicknamed "the Rockers". This particular group emerged as a supporter club for the Montreal chapter of the Outlaws MC before eventually working its way up to become their second chapter within
30375-479: The legs, saying this was punishment for stealing his guns. During the beating he accidentally shot Baker in the head. Baker was left for dead in a sandpit, but was able to crawl his way to a farmhouse despite his wounds. Kane was convicted of conspiracy to murder , kidnapping , assault , illegal use of a firearm and possession of a gun with the serial number filed off. He was given a 25-month sentence of which he only served ten months in prison and another five in
30600-419: The local drug dealers as the price for cocaine in northern Ontario was $ 50,000/per kilo while in Montreal the price was $ 32,000/per kilo. Kane stated that Steinert was very keen to move into northern Ontario, which was so lucrative for selling cocaine. Kane's double life also applied to his private life as he continued to live with his first wife Josée who also living with his future second wife Patricia (also
30825-481: The machine breaks. The vision here is always short term". Domingue told the journalists Julien Sher and William Marsden: "If you look at the rate or percentages of success in cases solved against the Hells Angels, I would say they kill with impunity. They have reasons to laugh at the law because they could do what they wanted but for the odd arrest here and there. We ended up being their best place to prosper. We didn't take them seriously enough". In Canada, belonging to
31050-400: The main source of information about the biker war from the Angels' perspective. Kane was leading a double life in more than one sense, as the ostensibly straight Kane was having a secret relationship with another Rocker, Aimé Simard . Kane mentioned to Verdon that one of the Angels, an American living in Montreal named Scott Steinert , was willing to do anything to win the war, and had gone on
31275-463: The main suspect". Steinert told Boucher that his concerns were merely "babble", but Boucher was convinced there was an informer. Kane was temporarily saved when the Hells Angels hitman Serge Quesnel turned informer after his arrest in April 1995, which led to the conclusion being reached in the Hells Angels that he was the "coded informer". However, Boucher dismissed this theory, noting that Quesnel
31500-401: The man he had pulled over in Oromocto. Simard was the main witness for the Crown, but to confirm his story required that Blinn and Hutley confirm that Kane was the man they had pulled over with Simard. During the trial, various police officers gave conflicting testimony about whatever Blinn and Hutley had picked Kane out of a police line-up on 6 May 1997 or not. During his time in custody for
31725-412: The members of the death squad were to receive 30% of the profits from drug sales once the Hells Angels had taken control of the last Rock Machine drug markets. Kane reported that a drug dealer working for the Hells Angels known as Gros Mo ("Big Mo") was beaten up for also buying cocaine from the Rock Machine, but he omitted that Simard had nearly killed Gros Mo . Unlike the control freak Kane, Simard
31950-433: The members only learned of them the day before when a Rocker would hand out business cards with the name of the motel and the room that they were to meet. In the fall of 1999, Kane again become involved with murder plots initiated by Carroll. A former Hells Angel in Halifax named Randy Mersereau had broken away to form his own gang, and was reported to have put out contracts on the lives of Carroll, Boucher and Mike McCrea,
32175-540: The men responsible for the Lennoxville massacre in 1986, was assigned to the Operation Carcajou squad as its legal counsel in 1995. Domingue stated that the Crown gave the Carcajou squad a budget of $ 5 million, but none for the Crown Attorneys, saying: "I was alone on a part-time basis. I was running around like mad and unable to do any decent work". Another Crown Attorney, François Legault, who prosecuted Hells Angel Richard Vallée in 1997, found himself handling
32400-469: The message that no-one who crossed the Angels were safe anywhere. Hinse was arrested by the Mexican police, but freed after a Mexican judge was bribed with some 700,000 Canadian dollars to dismiss the murder charges. On 30 January 1995, Jacques Ferland, a chemist who worked for the Rock Machine was murdered in Quebec City house, by the Hells Angels hitman Serge Qusnel. On 27 February 1995, Claude Cossette,
32625-420: The most highly placed RCMP informer in the Hells Angels. In September 1995, Kane was involved in the murder of a drug dealer, Stéphane Boire. In October 1995, Kane became a striker with the Rockers, which required him to pay a $ 1, 500 initiation fee and hand over 10% of his monthly criminal earnings to the club. On 9 November 1995 Kane told St. Onge that he was going to Thunder Bay to sell cocaine for Steinert to
32850-426: The murder of Baker to a Mexican hitman instead of sending down a Canadian Hells Angel to kill Baker. The policeman told Boucher that a good Mexican hitman could be hired for CA$ 500, which was far cheaper than the bribe he had to pay the Acapulco police to free Hinse. In March 1995, Kane's cover was almost blown when Boucher was arrested for carrying a handgun, and an officer with the Sûreté du Québec told him that
33075-546: The murder of Beaulieu. Pelletier's murder of Beaulieu was classified as second degree murder , despite the fact Beaulieu had fallen asleep after Pelletier got him drunk before he opened fire. Since the murder was premeditated, it should have been classified as a first degree murder . In his plea bargain struck in June 1996, Pelletier was sentenced to life imprisonment with a promise that he receive full parole after 10 years served, in exchange for which he shared all he knew about
33300-433: The murderer should be liquidated, Steinert didn't respond and became very pensive". According to Kane, Boucher and Steinert had discussed a plan to win over public opinion by killing one of their own in an especially brutal manner out of the hope that the public would blame the Rock Machine; Dubé who was a low level drug dealer working for the Angels was chosen as the one to be sacrificed. A RCMP report described Steinert as
33525-441: The neighbor of his parents, introduced him to motorcycles and not long after he fell into the biker fraternity life of strip clubs run by the bikers in the small towns around Montreal. Ever since the 1960s, there has been an outlaw biker subculture in Quebec, and Kane embraced it as a way of rejecting the values of his working-class family. Josée reported from his teenage years onward Kane had wanted to join an outlaw biker club, with
33750-476: The notorious Quebec Biker War were committed by bikers who belonged to the Rockers Motor Club. It is alleged that nearly all of such individuals had been driven by the desire to "prove their worth" to the Hells Angels MC - hoping to be admitted as "full-patch" members. The majority of Rockers MC members were arrested by the Quebec authorities in 2001 following a massive law enforcement crackdown involving
33975-460: The outrage, little was done to stop the carnage as the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal , which has long been notorious as the most corrupt police force in Canada, preferred to take bribes from both biker gangs and look the other way. Those policemen unwilling to accept bribes from the bikers found themselves receiving death threats and their cars were torched by arsonists. In 1998, one policeman who worked undercover in Montreal complained it
34200-467: The owner of the Crescent Bar in Montreal for refusing to pay protection money plus the 10% take on daily sales the Hells Angels and the Mafia expected from all bar and restaurant owners in Montreal. A Montreal police detective later accused Lock of beating up the owner of the Crescent Bar, which led Lock to believe it was Kane who was the informer. In April 1995, Sergeant St. Onge was approached by
34425-540: The person who pressed the button to have the bomb explode saw children across the street. There was no way he could not see the children across the street". Renaud Jomphe who was president of the Rock Machine Montreal chapter was interviewed and told reporter Michel Auger of the Journal de Montreal, that "we don't attack or target, and we certainly don't kill, children". He also stated the Hells Angels as
34650-516: The phone over to have the stripper tell St. Onge about his sexual prowess. By April 1995 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was paying Kane $ 2,000 a week. In May 1995, when Kane's wife, Josée gave birth to his son, Guillaume, Steinert served as the godfather to Kane's son. Kane's efforts to be on good terms with his two feuding patrons, Carroll and Steinert, caused him problems. Carroll wanted Kane to continue with
34875-526: The planned expansion of the Angels into Ontario, since he, together with national president Wolodumir "Walter the Nurget" Stadnick and Donald "Pup" Stockford were the only Anglos in the Quebec Angels' leadership. Neither Stadnick nor Stockford spoke French, and police wiretaps showed that when the leaders of the Angels met, interpreters were needed for them to participate. Carroll had spent two years in
35100-487: The police on the Hells Angels . Kane was found dead of an apparent suicide in the garage of his suburban Montreal home in the summer of 2000. Born in L'Acadie, Quebec (now Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu , Quebec ), as a child Kane was brought up by caring relatives, attended private school and Boy Scouts, and went on many expensive vacations. Kane's father, Jean-Paul Kane, was a bricklayer, while mother Gemma Brideau
35325-473: The police, which was a major violation of the gang's rules, which state that anyone who had applied to be a policeman was not allowed to join. St. Onge and Verdon had a new superior in the form of Staff Sergeant Pierre "Patame" Bolduc. Bolduc felt that much of Kane's information was useless as far as prosecuting Hells Angels was concerned and that the Mounties were paying exorbitant amounts of money for nothing. Bolduc wrote almost all of Kane's information about
35550-516: The premier Hells Angels chapter in Canada, but none dared to challenge Boucher. In the most notorious incident of guerre des motards , on 9 August 1995, a drug dealer named Marc Dubé was killed by a bomb planted in his jeep. Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy playing across the street, was also killed by debris from the explosion. Dubé was leaving the Hells Angels clubhouse in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood of Montreal at
35775-582: The president of the Angels' Halifax chapter as a prelude to joining the Bandidos. On 22 September 1999, Kane mentioned to Roberge that he was going to Halifax to kill Mersereau for Carroll, saying "He told me to get a gun. We're going there [Halifax], I don't known when we're coming back, but bring a gun". On 23 September 1999, the Angels bombed the car ownership owned by Mersereau in Truro, injuring 7 people including Mersereau. Kane's assassin assignment presented
36000-414: The president of the Demon Keepers puppet gang. The Demon Keepers were founded in a party at the Hells Angels Montreal chapter's clubhouse on 29 January 1994 and later the same day Kane and his gang rode out to Toronto. Kane also unveiled the Demon Keepers patch, which he had designed himself. The journalist Jerry Langton described the patch as a chain made up of assault rifles circling what appeared to be
36225-413: The province in 1993. In Quebec, most of the illegal drugs were imported by the Mafia and distributed by the biker gangs to various street-level drug dealers. The journalist André Cédillot, an expert on biker gangs in Quebec, stated in an interview: "The Mafia were in charge of importation and the Hells Angels were the distributors. Internationally, the Mafia has a better reputation than Hells Angels because
36450-405: The ranks as a reward. Kane was considered to be a likeable and intelligent character whose only major weakness was sex as he bragged incessantly to anyone who would listen about the size of his penis and his sexual prowess with the opposite sex. Kane kept his bisexuality a closely guarded secret as homophobia is rampant within the outlaw biker subculture. Kane was upset because he had worked with
36675-471: The recent arrest of his partner, Simard, on an unrelated murder charge, Kane would be brought into custody by the Nova Scotia RCMP for 18 months but would then be released due to the RCMP's contradictory evidence. Two RCMP officers from Halifax, Sergeant G.A. Barnett and Constable Tom Townsend arrived in Montreal to ask that Kane be extradited to Halifax to face charges of first degree murder for
36900-414: The restaurant, but a Montreal parking officer noticed the truck was parked illegally and had it towed, thus unknowingly foiling the plot. On 4 November 1994, Rock Machine member Daniel Bertrand, was shot dead while drinking in a Montreal bar. On 4 December 1994, another Rock Machine member, Bruno Bandiera, was killed when his bomb he was transporting in his car exploded prematurely. The Pelletier Clan and
37125-424: The same day. At the same time, Kane was caught up between a power struggle between Carroll and Scott Steinert . Kane reported that Carroll and Steinert hated each other. Kane told his police handlers: "I like that-working for two guys. Working for two Hells, that allows me to skate between both of them". The journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden wrote Kane had placed himself in a dangerous position within
37350-406: The scissors to cut his throat. In November 1994, Quesnel was permitted to join the Trois-Rivières chapter of the Hells Angels after the chapter president Louse "Mélou" Roy decided that he was the type of killer he wanted in his chapter. Roy told Quesnel he would be paid $ 500 per week and $ 10,000 every time he committed a murder, an offer that Quesnel promptly accepted. Quesnel's career as a hitman
37575-487: The senior ranks of the Montreal police was selling Boucher information, as Boucher had often boasted to him that he knew everything that police knew about him. Kane also told the RCMP that the Hells Angels paid double a policeman's weekly salary for information, and that much of the Montreal police were working for them, causing him to ask that RCMP should never share information with the Montreal police lest he be exposed. An additional problem with handling outlaw biker cases
37800-488: The small-time Crack Down Posse street gang, had already worked alongside the Hells Angels as Maurice Boucher's bodyguard and earned his reputation after successfully forging an alliance between HAMC and the influential Italian-Canadian Rizzuto crime family (as well as several of the area's local street gangs) to manage Greater Montreal 's illicit drug market. Woolley would shortly go on to form The Syndicate in 1998, another criminal organization to collaborate jointly with
38025-552: The son of Vito Rizzuto , in a bar fight, which led to a request from the Rizzuto family for Magnussen's murder. On 28 March 1997, Kane's lover, Rocker member Aimé Simard — stating he was acting under the orders of the Rocker president, a man known as Gregory "Pissaro" Wooley — murdered Rock Machine member Jean-Marc Caissy as he entered a Montreal arena to play hockey with his friends. After being arrested, Simard agreed to work for
38250-449: The son of the Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto outside of a bar on St. Laurent Boulevard. Kane reported that Vito Rizzuto was furious with Magunssen and wanted him dead. In November 1996, Kane used his own website to meet Aimé Simard whom he recruited into the Rockers. Simard was living in Quebec City, but listed himself as living in Montreal. It remains unclear if the "sexually adventurous" Kane, who prided himself on having many girlfriends,
38475-402: The stomach for this or have the necessary authority to actually commit crimes. The downside of this is that the attrition rate is high ... However, those determined to wear the patch will ... do as they are ordered and that's what makes these gangs so dangerous." The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in
38700-499: The streets to collect footage of various targets. The funeral of Mafia boss Frank Cotroni's mother was recorded as Boucher wanted footage of the faces and the license plates of all who attended the funeral. He was planning to liquidate the Cotroni family once he was finished with the Rock Machine. Boucher approved of Steinert, whose work ethic contrasted strongly with Carroll who was a self-proclaimed "party animal". Kane mentioned to
38925-476: The summer of 1992 with the criminals that her husband kept bringing home as she told him that his friends were disreputable, dishonest and dangerous. Two of Kane's friends, Martin Giroux and Eric Baker, validated his wife's concerns by stealing 20 of his illegal guns with the intention of selling the stolen arms themselves. In September 1992, Kane and two other men nearly beat two men to death. Kane shot Baker in
39150-429: The suspicion of smuggling drugs as the two men were dressed in such a flamboyant way that the two officers, Constables Gilles Blinn and Dale Hutley, thought they must be drug dealers. Kane and Simard co-operated with the two officers, but refused to allow them to open the trunk of their car, and lacking both probable cause and a warrant, the two officers did not search the car's trunk with the guns in it. The search caused
39375-613: The terms of his plea bargain, under which he promised not to commit any more crimes, when he was caught in 2002 attempting to bribe another prison inmate to kill a prisoner whom he disliked, allowing the Crown to revoke its agreement and Pelletier was not released in June 2006 as was promised 10 years earlier. Pelletier finally received full parole in December 2013 after he completed his high school equivalency degree, started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and demonstrated an ability to get along with penitentiary staff. In January 1996,
39600-442: The time of his murder, and it remains unclear whether it was the Angels or the Rock Machine who planted the bomb. Kane, in his reports to Verdon mentioned that Steinert, whom he described as an arrogant and aggressive bully, was acting very strangely after the death of Desrochers. Kane described Steinert as acting very worried, and expressing the fear that he might finally have go to prison or be deported from Canada, which led Kane to
39825-564: The toll is staggering: 162 dead, scores wounded. The victims include an 11-year-old boy killed by shrapnel from one of the more than 80 bombs bikers planted around the province. Even the New York Mafia in its heyday never produced such carnage, or so terrorized civilians." The Hells Angels first entered Canada via a "patch over" of the Popeyes of Montreal on 5 December 1977, and subsequently established dominance in Quebec during
40050-481: The use of puppet clubs by the Hells Angels: "However, the paranoia that new recruits might be infiltrators from law enforcement or even journalists causes much angst around their selection. To try and avoid this, potential members are treated like shit and asked to perform various tasks to prove their worth. These are often degrading or illegal, the rationale being that a UC [undercover] cop or similar wouldn't have
40275-650: The warnings completely as a police provocation intended to turn him against his "brothers". In December 1995, Steinert purchased the mansion previously owned by the Lavigueur family in the 1980s, on Laval's expensive Île aux Pruches island (part of the Hochelaga Archipelago ), where he was married in the summer of 1996. A deportation order was served on Steinert, who was born in Milwaukee, ordering him to leave Canada by 14 November 1996, but his lawyer
40500-399: The working class urban criminal milieu that most Quebec Hells Angels came from. Roberge stated: "In that milieu, maybe Kane didn't have the criminal roots to say, 'Me, I'll never talk to the cops'. Because for many bikers, it's almost like a religion, it's so strong. What Kane did have was a James Bond side to him, a sense of adventure". Kane warned his RCMP handlers to be careful with sharing
40725-405: The working for the whites only Hells Angels. The Rockers were a Hells Angel puppet club, but were not like the other puppet clubs such as the Evil Ones and the Condors which merely replicated the work of the Hells Angels. Instead, the Rockers served as the enforcement unit for the Hells Angels, being divided into a "baseball team" for intimidation and assault and the "football team", which served as
40950-408: The world of the Hells Angels, but at the same time he was deeply in love with him. On 20 April 1997, Simard tried to commit suicide in his jail cell, saying he would rather kill himself than send Kane to prison. Despite Simard's devotion to him, Kane disparaged him in his reports to his RCMP handlers after his arrest as he stated: "In the milieu no one is taking Simard very seriously anymore because he
41175-434: Was Aimé Simard , who was murdered in 2003 in a Saskatchewan prison. In July 1996, the RCMP gave Kane some $ 30,325 to set up a magazine Rencontres Selectes , a magazine catering to those looking for casual sex whose revenue came from ads for strippers, phone sex and prostitution. Kane launched a website to go along with his magazine, which catered to homosexuals looking for casual sex. Staff Sergeant St. Onge argued that it
41400-468: Was a turf war in Montreal , Quebec , Canada, lasting from 1994 to 2002, between the Quebec branch of the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine . The war left 162 people dead, including civilians. There were also 84 bombings and 130 cases of arson . In March 2002, American journalist Julian Rubinstein wrote about the biker war: "Considering how little attention the story has attracted outside Canada,
41625-528: Was a "prospect" with the Hells Angels. Steinert planned to set up a Hells Angels chapter in Kingston once he was promoted up to a "full patch" Hells Angel and planned to have Kane move to Kingston with him. However, Carroll ordered Kane to rejoin the Evil Ones puppet gang, which Kane considered to be a major humiliation. Kane believed that the Hells Angels had used them and told one of his police handlers that he wanted revenge. Kane had become frustrated that he
41850-433: Was a good family". In 1983, Kane met and started to date a 13-year-old girl, known under the pseudonym of Josée as she does not want her real to be known, who later became his wife. He grew up discontented with his life and wanted recognition in a bike gang in Quebec. Kane was a restless student who was incapable of sitting still in class. When he was 16 he left school and took whatever work he could get. Robert Guimard,
42075-464: Was a housewife. Kane's family was poor, but respectable. To save money, Kane's parents sent him away to live with an uncle, which damaged Kane's self-esteem. Kane was a loner who disliked revealing his feelings and always felt out of place. Germain Godin, the owner of a local grocery store who employed Kane as a teenager, recalled: "He was always very polite, a good employee. He was easy to deal with. It
42300-487: Was a member of the Dark Circle and later joined the Rock Machine. Rejecting the Angels' ultimatum, the Alliance launched a series of attacks against the Hells Angels beginning on 13 July 1994, when Death Riders member Pierre Daoust was shot dead by three Rock Machine associates while working in his motorcycle shop in Rivière-des-Prairies . The following day, Rockers member Normand "Norm" Robitaille survived
42525-400: Was able to void the deportation order, arguing that Steinert had just married a Canadian woman with whom he had a child, making it inhumane to send him back to the United States. Besides the marriage ceremony at Lavigueur mansion, Steinert also used the estate to make a pornographic film entitled The Babe Angel , starring himself and 9 of his prostitutes. In August 1996, Salvatore Cazzetta who
42750-541: Was accepted by the otherwise all-white Angels as he was their best killer. Wooley had founded a street gang of fellow Haitian immigrants, based in the north end of Montreal in the poor neighborhood of St. Michel where many Haitians lived, initially known as the Crack Down Posse (CDP), and was renamed the Syndicate in 1998. They wore blue gang colors that were closely modeled after the hats and clothing worn by
42975-408: Was accusing him of being an informer, portraying it as an attempt by the Crown to force him to confess by falsely tagging him as an informer. St. Onge stated: "He was very smart. He knew Carroll had been accused of murder in Halifax and that the police had tried a similar ploy with him. And so he also knew that Carroll would understand and pass the word to the others that Kane was not talking". Kane
43200-418: Was agreed that the Pelletier Clan and the Rock Machine would provide the "muscle" while the Dark Circle would provide the financial backing. The Dark Circle's leadership was provided by a committee of five. The chairman was Michel Duclos, a Montreal schoolteacher who also owned a bar that was a front for laundering profits from the drug trade. In November 1994, a disgruntled member of the Rockers, Dany Kane ,
43425-436: Was angry with Labrasseur for his telling his mistress that he was married, was told by his wife in late February 1996 that Labrasseur was one of his Hells Angels-linked friends that she approved of. Kane told her in response: "That's too bad because it's the last time you'll be seeing him". On 3 March 1996, Kane killed Roland Labrasseur, a drug addict who had fallen behind in his debts to the Hells Angels by driving him out to
43650-428: Was being followed by Kane and Simard and parked his car in the industrial park. MacFarlane got out to confront them while Simard shot him with a .38 handgun from the passenger's window As MacFarlane screamed in pain from his wound, he ran away while Simard and Kane both got of the car to give chase and finally gunned him down. On 11 March 1997, Kane told his handlers that: "Simard is very unpredictable and dangerous...He
43875-538: Was being held in the Parthenais Detention Center prior to his extradition to the United States, was attacked and wounded by six other prisoners in a "jailhouse contract". On 18 October 1996, the president of the Rock Machine Montreal chapter, Renaud Jomphe alongside Christian Deschenes of the Rock Machine were shot and killed while eating in a Chinese restaurant in Verdun. The Rock Machine leader
44100-406: Was bisexual or bicurious . On their first date, the two men went to Simard's mother's house, where they had sex in the whirlpool. Both men lied to each other with Simard saying he had gone to prison for trying to kill a police officer (Simard had served a prison sentence for uttering death threats) while Kane claimed to be Hells Angel (Kane was only a Rocker). When Kane took off his clothes, Simard
44325-422: Was capable of providing the security. Likewise, the mayor of Quebec City, Jean-Paul L'Allier, wanted the Carcajou squad to take anti-biker activity in his city because he believed this would mean that the Quebec City police would not have to be involved and in this way he would save his city much money. The Royal Commission chaired by Justice Lawrence Poitras that was set up to examine the Sûreté du Québec after
44550-539: Was completely ineffective, owing to the poisoned relations between Quebec City and Ottawa during this period. Sergeant Gaetan St.Onge of the RCMP who served with the Carcajou squad stated: "Wolverine was a total circus. The SQ was jealous of the RCMP source [Kane]. They were always asking his name. The SQ used to give out the names of their sources all the time. They didn't care if they were blown. They treated them like dirt. At meetings they would just blurt their sources's name and expect everybody to keep it quiet". Typical of
44775-456: Was cut short when he was arrested on 1 April 1995, leading him to turn Crown's evidence in exchange for becoming eligible for parole after 12 years together with some $ 390,000 payment from the Crown. Roy was arrested and charged with murder, but acquitted in April 1997. On 24 June 1995, Boucher founded the Nomads, an elite chapter of the Angels, that unlike the other chapters, had no geographical limit and were to operate all over Canada. To join
45000-727: Was founded stabbed to death in his prison cell on July 18, 2003, while incarcerated at Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert . Rockers member Dany Kane committed suicide in his garage though the use of carbon monoxide gasses from his car's exhaust system in August 2000. Quebec Biker War Hells Angels MC Support: The Alliance [REDACTED] Quebec government Maurice Boucher Giovanni Cazzetta [REDACTED] Jacques Parizeau (1994–1996) [REDACTED] Lucien Bouchard (1996–2001) [REDACTED] Bernard Landry (2001–2002) The Quebec Biker War ( French : Guerre des motards au Québec )
45225-448: Was going to divorce his wife as he insisted that she was his one true love. On 1 June 1996 Patricia moved in with Kane into a Montreal apartment. Only in 2000 did Kane confess that he killed Labrasseur, and through admitted that he buried Boire's body, he continued to deny that he killed him. Kane in his reports stated that Labrasseur was a former soldier in the Canadian Army who was an expert with explosives who had been building bombs for
45450-485: Was gunned down by Aime Simard - marking the very first murder he had carried out for the club. To reward his success, the Rockers Motor Club granted Simard a spot on their crew of assassins (comedically referred to as their "football team"). In amidst of the war with Rock Machine, Rockers MC biker Paul "Fon Fon" Fontaine, along with an accomplice, murdered provincial prison guard Pierre Rondeau and nearly killed Rondeau's colleague, Robert Corriveau on Sept. 8, 1997. The attack
45675-440: Was impossible to have charges filed against the bikers stick in court as judges, prosecutors, and jurors had all been bribed. Benoît Roberge, a senior detective with the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal in charge of stopping the guerre des motards , instead cultivated a close business relationship with a Hells Angels leader named René Charlebois, selling him information. Kane told his handlers in 1995 that somebody in
45900-510: Was impressed to see he had on his arm a tattoo that read "SS 81". The number 81 stood for HA (Hells Angels) as H is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet while A is the first letter. In the Hells Angels, to wear the lightning bolt runes of the SS indicates that the wearer is a member of the "Filthy Few", the title awarded to those who have killed for the gang. The use of the SS lightning bolt runes as
46125-503: Was indeed freed. Verdon wrote: "Mexico has informed us of the liberation of Hinse despite all the evidence. It's a clear case of corruption...We understand that the HA [Hells Angels] invested a million Mexican pesos to buy the Mexican authorities. Events have proved C-2994 [Kane] right and once again demonstrated the reliability and importance of our source". Kane reported that a Mexican policeman had told Boucher that he should have contracted out
46350-481: Was involved in bombings or any other serious criminal activity". Kane's first stint as an informant lasted from 1994 to 1997 where he collected a total of $ 250,000. On 19 December 1994, Kane took his police handlers on a guided tour of the hidden bomb factories for the Hells Angels located in various houses, apartments and offices throughout Montreal, Sorel and the South Shore. Due to Kane's information, which
46575-420: Was living in the same apartment as Patricia, which led her to file for divorce. On 29 November 1996, Kane wrote in a report that Stockford had a courier deliver 300 kilograms of hashish to Hamilton, and in another report in January 1997 stated that Stockford had sent another courier with 4 kilograms of cocaine to Oshawa. Kane had a wife and three children and was secretly a bisexual. His secret homosexual lover
46800-429: Was necessary for the Mounties to subsidize Rencontres Selectes because "it means he [Kane] didn't have to commit serious crimes and thus could avoid getting arrested himself arrested or killed and could continue to feed us information". Sher and Marsden wrote: "So, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police got into the sex magazine trade. Taxpayers' money financed Kane's weekly magazine. The force laundered its investment through
47025-497: Was next; the Hells’ war plans against their Quebec rivals, the Rock Machine ; their expansion plans into Ontario and Manitoba ; and weapons and explosives purchases." Kane reported that the la messe ("the mass") as mandatory meetings for the Rockers were known were always presided over by a Nomad and every Rocker had to provide 10% of his earnings from crime to the Hells Angels. Kane stated that la messe were held at motels, and
47250-400: Was not afraid of the bikers. Initially Bouchard described Carcajou as an impressively well-funded operation with the most modern equipment, but described the Sûreté du Québec detectives who were a part of Operation Carcajou as having questionable ethics. In a visit to Quebec City, Bouchard was taken by several Sûreté du Québec detectives to a restaurant where all the food and drinks were on
47475-533: Was not just a university student, but he had gone to prison. In a bid to impress Kane, Simard lied about his criminal record for fraud, writing bad cheques and uttering death threats, and instead claimed he had been convicted of trying to kill a policeman. Kane then admitted that he was involved with the Hells Angels, but claimed to be a member of the Hells Angels proper instead of being the Rocker that he was. Kane reported to his RCMP handlers in February 1997 that
47700-456: Was only a low-level hitman working for the Trois-Rivières chapter president Louis Roy , and that the informer would have had to have been someone more high ranking than him. Boucher noted that the police had seized two mini-vans fitted out with dynamite, which led him to the conclusion that the police had been forewarned as he deduced that the police could not have discovered by accident two dynamite-packed mini-vans parked on different streets on
47925-568: Was ordered by Maurice Boucher in an attempt to destabilize the Quebec justice system and frighten police informants who were either members or associates of HAMC. Fontaine was successfully awarded with membership into the Hells Angels MC Quebec Nomads chapter for this act. In response to the targeted murder of senior Hells Angel Normand Hamel on April 17, 2000, by Rock Machine MC members, a longstanding HAMC-affiliated outlaw motorcycle club based in Laval, Quebec known as
48150-436: Was passed on to the Montreal police, two weeks later the police seized two parked mini-vans that had been turned into drivable bombs that were each full of 50 sticks of dynamite. Both mini-vans were intended to kill Rock Machine members and St. Onge wrote: "This seizure saved lives". On 4 January 1995, Normand Baker, a member of the Rock Machine, was murdered in Acapulco, Mexico by a Hells Angel, François Hinse, who shot him in
48375-470: Was promoted to president of the Quebec City chapter. The success of the Sensations escort service caused tensions with Carroll, whose Adventure escort service suffered as Steinert wanted all of the profits from prostitution for himself. Steinert founded what he called his Groupe de Cinq to take over all the bars and night clubs on Crescent Street in Montreal and branching out into Ontario to take over
48600-427: Was reckless and out of control. As Simard was junior to him in the Rockers, he had to serve as Kane's virtual slave, chauffeuring him around Montreal, through Simard was a poor driver who twice smashed up Kane's cars. Sher and Marsden wrote that Kane "seemed to view Simard as a goofy sort of toy-somebody he could play with or employ as the need arose". In February 1997, Kane and Simard were dispatched by Carroll to kill
48825-505: Was seated with fellow club members and Raymond Laureau in a booth at the rear of a Chinese restaurant known as Restaurant Kim Hoa, located on Wellington Street. A man entered the establishment and approached the table, fired several shots and fled out the rear of the building. Jomphe and Deschenes were killed, while Laureau was wounded in the shoulder. One of the Paradis Brothers, Peter Paradis , would succeed Jomphe as president of
49050-400: Was sentenced to 9 years after his conviction. Matticks was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Dany Kane Dany "Dany Boy" Kane (1969 – 7 August 2000) was a Canadian criminal who was a compliant police informant at the same time. Kane worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as an informant inside the Hells Angels for many years, and provided information to
49275-404: Was so antiquated that Crown Attorneys sometimes had to ask defence lawyers for information on the current jurisprudence. Crown Attorneys in Quebec had the lowest salaries for prosecutors in Canada, receiving half of what Crown Attorneys made in Ontario, and those who took on outlaw biker cases received no security for themselves or their families. Typically a single Crown Attorney would be assigned
49500-465: Was sometimes self-serving in his reports to his RCMP handlers and he was a well known expert at building bombs, suggesting there was a possibility that it was him instead of Steinert who set off the bomb that killed Desrochers. Kane was an expert bomb-maker and at very least was a member of Steinert's bomb-making team instead of being the passive observer that he portrayed himself as. Kane committed at least 11 murders from 1994 to 1997 during his time as
49725-527: Was still a member of the Rockers, the Hells Angels' puppet club in Montreal, and had not been promoted to become an Angel despite all of his work for the club. On 17 October 1994, Kane contacted Staff-Sergeant Jean-Pierre Lévesque of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to tell them he wanted to work as an informer. Kane's main contacts with the RCMP were Corporal Pierre Verdon and Sergeant Gaetan St. Onge. Kane had his first meeting with Verdon on 4 November 1994. By December 1994 he told Corporal Verdon about all of
49950-593: Was the Redliners, which Stadnick plan ned to oppose two of Western Canada's dominant biker gangs: the Los Brovos and the Spartans MC. One of the most notable members of the Rockers was Dany Kane , a criminal from Montérégie who would later become a police informant for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Sûreté du Québec . While a member of the Rockers, Dany Kane would later come into contact with
50175-430: Was the biggest pimp in Montreal, owning the Sensations escort service, whose office in Montreal was destroyed in a case of arson in August 1996 by the Rock Machine. In mid 1996. Marcel Demers , who had been acting president of the Quebec City chapter created a second Rock Machine chapter in the city, it was located in the suburb of Beauport . With Demers becoming the president of the new Beauport chapter, Frédéric Faucher
50400-504: Was the state of the Crown Attorneys in Quebec. There were 84 Crown Attorneys (prosecutors) in Montreal who had four secretaries at their service, requiring the Crown Attorneys to do much of their paperwork themselves, leaving them little time to prepare for cases. Furthermore, until 2002, the Crown Attorneys in Quebec were not provided with computers, forcing them to write out their notes on typewriters or by hand, nor did they have access to online criminal databases. The law library in Montreal
50625-460: Was thrown into a moment of panic in August 1997 when Simard accused him of being an informer as he noted that the police knew where he had hidden a gun after shooting a man in Quebec City and the only person whom Simard had told about the location of the gun was Kane. However, Simard was widely considered to be delusional and a pathological liar, and the Hells Angels put little attention to his allegations. Verdon wrote on 19 August 1997: "C-2994 [Kane]
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