Pubdate: Fri, 12 May 2006 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Kim Bolan Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?188 (Outlaw Bikers) HELLS ANGELS EXPAND THEIR EMPIRE IN B.C. Puppet Clubs Are Being Set Up After Several Arrests By Police The Hells Angels is expanding in B.C. by setting up new puppet clubs in an attempt to counter law-enforcement efforts that have led to several high-profile arrests and convictions in recent months, The Vancouver Sun has learned. The Vancouver Hells Angels chapter has set up the Outcasts support club in the last year, which is now operational and ready to expand into Surrey, RCMP Chief Supt. Bob Paulson, a biker gang expert based in Ottawa, said Thursday. And the White Rock chapter has put together a proposal for its own puppet club called the Jesters. Details of the proposal were uncovered when White Rock sergeant-at-arms Villy Roy Lynnerup was arrested late last month with a gun at Vancouver International Airport, Paulson said. He said the Hells Angels' "West Coast board of governors" gave its approval for the Outcasts some time ago, but the process was still underway for the Jesters when Lynnerup was arrested attempting to board a flight for Edmonton with a fully loaded Bryco .38-calibre pistol. "The Outcasts have been around for about a year now and they are just firming up and they are not far from the White Rock chapter and the idea there is that the Outcasts are going to be looking at Surrey in a big way," Paulson said. "And White Rock is seeking approval for the Jesters." Lynnerup, 41, now faces a series of charges and is out on bail. Richmond RCMP said after his arrest that Hells Angels documents were found in his luggage, including minutes of "officers' meetings." Lynnerup is not the only full patch member of the club to run into legal trouble in the past year. Vancouver chapter president Norman Edward Krogstad and Cedric Baxter Smith were sentenced to four years in jail last November for 11 counts of cocaine trafficking. And David Patrick O'Hara, who was affiliated with the Angels puppet club, The Renegades, pleaded guilty to trafficking and weapons possession. A Hells Angels member and two alleged associates are due to go to trial in September on a series of charges related to production and trafficking of crystal meth. As well, a new book on the bikers, called Angels of Death, says federal income tax investigators have launched an offensive against the Hells Angels in B.C., who are among the wealthiest bikers in Canada. Paulson said the new support clubs are an attempt by the Hells Angels to distance themselves from illegal activity by allowing the other biker groups to do the work. "We actually have full patches hands-on so that is a very bad practice in their world. So this is a response to our enforcement practices is to build up the support clubs and have them do the work," Paulson said. "They are really in a bad way, the Hells Angels on the west coast, and they are really disturbed by what we have done. So these support clubs are a way of distancing themselves. And that is their solution to get these support clubs to assume the risk. That is what they have done everywhere else in the world and that's what they have done in eastern Canada." The challenge for police is to make the link between the two organizations in criminal cases and to prove criminal conspiracy under Canada's new anti-gang laws, he said. "That is the challenge for us is to put that proof forward," Paulson said. When Lynnerup was arrested last month, Hells Angels' spokesman Rick Ciarniello said he was stunned. "I'm absolutely flabbergasted that this has happened," he told The Vancouver Sun. "This is so absurd it almost sounds like a setup." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman