A prominent Hells Angels associate who leads the Devil’s Army support club in Campbell River has been charged with the 2016 murder of a promising MMA fighter and young father.

Richard Ernest “Ricky” Alexander, 63, was arrested Friday afternoon in a parking lot in Campbell River and charged with killing John “Dillon” Brown, 30.

Brown was found dead inside the trunk of his grey Honda Accord on March 12, 2016, near Sayward, northwest of Campbell River. He was last seen leaving a Campbell River residence about 1 p.m. the day before.

Officers from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit executed a search warrant in connection with Brown’s death at the Devils Army clubhouse last year.

At the time, Alexander told Postmedia that he didn’t know why police were there and wouldn’t comment until he found out.

CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said Friday that the anti-gang agency worked with police from the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit on the “very active” murder investigation, which involved over 200 officers.

She said Alexander is being held in custody on Vancouver Island pending his next court appearance.

CFSEU Chief Officer Trent Rolfe said the charge is “particularly significant as it involves a long-time, high-ranking member of an outlaw motorcycle club.”

Alexander owns the building housing the clubhouse at 70 Petersen Rd., which was assessed last year as being worth $311,000, property records show.

He also owns a 13-acre property in Mission, assessed at just over $1 million, where he lives. And he owns condos in Burnaby and Pitt Meadows worth a total of $714,000, according to land titles obtained by Postmedia.

The Devils Army opened in Campbell River in 2009. Police say the 1% biker gang, which has five full-patch members and two strikers, or prospects, is affiliated with the Haney chapter of the more notorious Hells Angels.

Alexander and three others applied to trademark the helmeted skull logo that is the centre of the Devils Army’s three-piece patch on May 22, 2009. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office finally approved the trademark in 2012, records show.

The back patch for the Devil’s Army from Campbell River, B.C., one of a series of puppet clubs of the Hell’s Angels, police say. Photo: 2009

Alexander describes himself on land title records as a businessman and a forestry consultant. Back in 2001, at a sentencing hearing for a firearms charge, his lawyer said Alexander was an experienced arborist, owned a trucking company, and was partners in a granite quarry in Suriname.

The 2001 conviction stemmed from his arrest near an East Vancouver house associated with friends of suspects in the murder a month earlier of prominent Hells Angel Donald Roming.

At the time, Alexander had a loaded pink handgun in his waistband and a list of names and descriptions in the glove compartment of his rental car. The first name on the list was the person that police identified as the main suspect in Roming’s murder. Police also found a black toque and dark clothing in the car, as well as a second loaded handgun in the trunk.

Alexander pleaded guilty to a single count of possessing a loaded prohibited weapon and was sentenced to 22 months.

At his sentencing hearing, the Crown said there was a clear connection to the murder of Roming, who was gunned down March 9, 2001, outside a downtown nightclub.

Before he was shot, Roming had argued with two men in the club. The dispute spilled outside, ending with the fatal shooting. The suspects fled before police arrived, but others at the crime scene shouted their names to police. Friends of Roming’s also heard the names.

Police were watching the East Vancouver house linked to the suspects on April 4, 2001, when they saw Alexander in black clothing lurking near the rear of the residence and then circling the block. He later got into a leased Budget rental car and circled the block again, before leaving and going to a Burnaby address and then to a place in Mission.

When Alexander returned the following night, police stopped him and found a .22-calibre semi-automatic subcompact handgun in his waistband and another .22-calibre handgun in the trunk.

In the glove compartment, they found two handwritten pages listing the name of the prime suspect in the Roming shooting and three of his friends. The list included addresses for the men and, in some cases their families, vehicle descriptions and licence plate numbers, and physical descriptions of the men — including, in some cases, height, weight and whether they had any tattoos.

Alexander denied acting on behalf of the Hells Angels.

His lawyer told the judge in 2001 that his client had a “troubled youth” and had an extensive criminal record that included armed robbery, break and enter, and drug trafficking.

RCMP Asst. Commissioner Kevin Hacket said Friday that police across the country “are committed to ensuring that outlaw motorcycle gangs and their associates remain a priority due to the level of violence and harm they inflict on our communities.”

“This investigation showcases that a collaborative, coordinated and focused approach can gather the evidence necessary to ensure that those responsible are brought before the courts,” Hackett said.

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When Yong Long Ye was arrested almost 11 years ago, police described him as the “head of the snake” of an international trafficking gang who owned luxury properties and moved tens of millions in drugs and cash.

Since getting day parole earlier this year, he has been living a less glamorous life, staying in a halfway house and working as a painter, parole documents state.

The Parole Board of Canada ruled Oct. 15 that Ye, now 51, could remain on day parole because he no longer presents “an undue risk to society.”

“Your release will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating your reintegration into society as a law-abiding citizen,” board members Mike Sanford and Christopher Sullivan said in their written ruling.

Ye was sentenced to 18 years in jail in 2008 after pleading guilty in B.C. Supreme Court to conspiracy to import and traffic cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as laundering the proceeds of crime.

Ye’s criminal empire involved associates across Canada, in Australia, the U.S., Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, India and China, according to submissions at his sentencing hearing. He was buying cocaine in California and transporting it to Canada, as well as manufacturing meth for sale in Australia.

The parole board documents don’t indicate where the former Vancouver resident is living now, but both Sanford and Sullivan are based in Ontario.

While on continued day parole, Ye has been ordered “not to associate with any person you know or have reason to believe is involved in criminal activity, which includes any known gang member, organized crime member or any of their associates.”

And he must work or go to school.

Ye is not allowed to have more than one cellphone, must stay away from casinos, and must report details of his finances, the board ruled.

The parole board ruling noted that Ye was described as the “operating mind” of a criminal organization that operated for at least seven years.

“Prior to your arrest, you were making plans to flee Canada and authorities believe you have financial monetary resources hidden and available to you,” the board said.

Sanford and Sullivan noted that while no victim impact statements had been filed in Ye’s case, “the amount and types of drugs involved (cocaine and methamphetamine) were such that it is reasonable to conclude that you contributed to the significant harm suffered by drug addicts, their families, and their communities.”

The parole board members said Ye had not demonstrated much remorse over the years, but said the inmate’s prison case management team thinks that could be the result of “language barriers.”

Ye came to Canada in 1989 as a landed immigrant and obtained his Canadian citizenship.

The board said he declared a low income, “but you lived in very expensive real estate and you were the beneficial owner of expensive real estate.”

“Some of the real estate was seized as proceeds of crime but you have also indicated that some of it, as well as some expensive vehicles, were returned to your family,” the board said.

Ye had no criminal convictions in Canada prior to his guilty plea, but he was earlier charged with trafficking and possession of a restricted or prohibited weapon with ammunition. The charges were dismissed.

He was also charged with assault, extortion and threatening the landlord of a building where he had been running a grow-op. The landlord found the grow-op and dismantled it, after which Ye allegedly threatened him, demanded $20,000 in compensation, then assaulted the man.

“The charges were stayed because the victim left Canada and was unable to testify,” the ruling said.

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For more than an hour as they drove down Highway 97 in the back of a B.C. Corrections van on Oct. 4, inmates pounded on the walls and shouted for help.

They were worried that fellow passenger Alex Joseph was dying of a drug overdose, after watching him slump to the floor, at first snoring heavily, but later turning blue.

The jail guards driving the van from Prince George to Maple Ridge stopped for coffee in Williams Lake, but didn’t respond to their shouts, three of the inmates who were also in the van told Postmedia this week.

When the van finally pulled over, north of 100 Mile House, Joseph, 36, was unresponsive. A passerby stopped and performed CPR, but he was gone.

His brother, Joseph Antoine, said Friday that he has a lot of questions about how his brother ended up dead while in the care of B.C. Corrections.

“For sure, it is upsetting,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. I would like to know why and how this happened.”

Gordon Hansen, in custody on fraud charges, was in the same compartment as Joseph — each handcuffed and shackled — when the other inmate appeared to pass out after snorting something.

“We go around a corner and he can’t brace himself, so he slides off the seat onto me and then falls onto the floor,” Hansen said in a phone interview from Fraser Regional Correctional Centre.

“I took his leg up, slapping him, trying to get him up, but he’s snoring, so I know he is alive.”

Joseph later stopped snoring and his hand was blue. Hansen checked his breathing. He thought the officers in the cab would see Joseph on cameras they monitor.

But the van passed through Quesnel and continued on to Williams Lake without anyone checking on Joseph.

Hansen thinks the van was about 50 kilometres south of Williams Lake when it finally stopped.

“When they got me out, there was already an RCMP (officer) there, lights flashing,” he said.

Hansen said paramedics did not arrive for a long time — he thinks 40 minutes to an hour. Joseph was dead, but still in shackles and handcuffs.

Keghan Cosh was in the next compartment, but was able to see Joseph collapse onto the floor.

“Just before Williams Lake, I could see that his hand was just blue. He was going under. He was done. He needed a naloxone shot and he would have been fine,” Cosh said in an interview from Fraser Regional.

“We were banging (on the van walls) at this time, maybe 10 or 20 minutes before Williams Lake. Maybe for half an hour, we were like screaming at the top of our lungs: ‘This guy is in overdose. Pull over, man.’”

Cosh thinks the officers just assumed they were misbehaving, “Which is understandable. I get it.”

But he thinks they should have noticed on their cameras that Joseph was in distress.

“For anyone to be treated the way that guy was treated is inhumane,” said Cosh, who has struggled with addiction himself and is serving a sentence for theft under $5,000.

In a statement, B.C. Corrections official Cindy Rose said “any in-custody death is a tragedy and our thoughts are with the family and friends of this individual.”

She also said her agency is conducting “a formal review of the circumstances to make recommendations that may reduce the likelihood of a similar incident in the future.”

“Staff in the cab of vehicles can monitor inmates via cameras mounted in the passenger compartment, supplemented by a two-way communications system,” the statement said.

The government did not respond to specific questions about what the inmates said happened before Joseph died.

The inmates also said they were being moved because of staffing shortages at the Prince George jail.

Rose said only that inmates are transported between provincial jails “on an as-needed basis.”

Andy Watson, of the B.C. Coroners Service, said an investigation is underway to determine “the official cause of death and any contributory factors.”

Joseph was a member of the Beaver clan in the Nak’azdli Nation, near Fort St. James.

He had battled addiction for years and been in and out of jail. At the time of his death, he was in pretrial custody on a number of charges, including assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats.

His family said he told them he was determined to go to treatment once he was out.

Inmate Josh Suvee-Forsythe said this week that he is still rattled by what he witnessed on Oct. 4.

He was beside Cosh in the B.C. Corrections van when he saw Joseph crumple to the ground.

“We knew something was wrong right there,” said Suvee-Forsythe, who is also in Fraser Regional serving a 665-day sentence for robbery. “We were doing everything we could to get the guards to respond. We covered the cameras. They just slammed on the brakes to make us fall down.”

Suvee-Forsythe said Joseph’s death was preventable and he wants his family to know they really tried to save his life.

“At the top of our lungs we were just screaming,” he said. “Looking at his skin — his hands were purple. His face was purple. He wasn’t moving.”

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The brother of slain Burnaby mother Kimberly Hallgarth said Monday that he hoped charges laid against her former boyfriend in the 2009 cold case might finally bring the family closure.

“We recognize that nothing can bring Kim back. However, we need and deserve closure and are glad to see this next step today,” ‎Jamie Errand said in a statement released by police at a Surrey news conference Monday.

At the same time, her accused killer, Joshua Joseph Boden, 32, appeared briefly in Vancouver provincial court and was remanded in custody until Dec. 10.

His lawyer Kevin Westell said outside the courthouse that Boden maintains his innocence in the murder, as he has done over the past nine years.

“These allegations have been out in the local media for the entirety of that time. Mr. Boden has been unwavering in his denial of his guilt in this matter,” Westell said.

Westell said he and fellow defence lawyer David Ferguson are still waiting for disclosure in the case.

“We will have a chance to review the disclosure and we will take it from there,” Westell said.

He wouldn’t say if Boden, a former professional football player, would make a bail application in B.C. Supreme Court.

Two friends of Hallgarth’s had been in courtroom 101 for the proceedings earlier in the morning, but left before Boden finally arrived close to 11 a.m. Both declined to comment.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said at the news conference the “new evidence … significantly advanced the investigation.”

Insp. Dave Chauhan, the acting head of IHIT, thanked Hallgarth’s family for its patience over the years.

“I realize the past nine years have been very difficult on Kim’s family and my deepest condolences go out to them,” he said. “I hope the news of someone being held accountable for Kim’s death brings some semblance of peace.”

He said the charge stemmed from “excellent foundational work as laid by investigators nine years ago, which continued into the present day by detectives of our specialized IHIT cold case team.”

Hallgarth, 33, was found dead inside her home on Colborne Ave. about 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, 2009. She had dated Boden for about eight months.

Errand, who asked for privacy for his family, thanked investigators for their “hard work”.

“We have waited nearly 10 long years for this moment and are relieved that closure is in sight. Only we know the unimaginable grief that our family has been going through and the toll it has taken on every family member,” he said. “What we have been going through is something that no family should ever have to experience.”

Boden, who briefly played in the CFL for the B.C. Lions and the Hamilton Tiger-cats, has had repeated interactions with police over the past decade.

Just last month, he pleaded guilty in a Vancouver courtroom to providing a false or misleading statement to police in May 2017.

He appeared in New Westminster court on Oct. 22 and received a three-month conditional sentence for breaching a court order. He also served two months in pretrial custody. Another charge of attempting to obstruct justice was stayed.

In the year before Hallgarth’s death, Boden was acquitted of theft, mischief and assault charges stemming from an alleged domestic dispute with her after Hallgarth wavered at the last minute on the witness stand.

The domestic charges resulted in the B.C. Lions cutting the receiver from the team.

Boden was convicted in December 2011 of two counts of sexual assault, one of obstruction of justice, and one of assaulting a police officer. The following July, he was sentenced to a year in jail.

Police had been watching Boden as he groped a woman who was walking toward the Commercial-Broadway station in September 2011. Boden fought with police when he was arrested. It took three officers, a civilian and a police dog to subdue him.

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Full family statement

First of all, we would like to thank all the members of IHIT’s Cold Case Team for all their hard work and relentless efforts on this investigation.

We have waited nearly 10 long years for this moment and are relieved that closure is in sight. Only we know the unimaginable grief that our family has been going through and the toll it has taken on every family member. What we have been going through is something that no family should ever have to experience.

Kim was a bubbly and caring person who deeply loved being the mother to Hailey and the void that her murder has left in our hearts can never be filled. She loved life and was always able to make everyone around her laugh. For those of you who knew Kim, you know that she had a heart of gold and genuinely cared about everybody she was close to. We will always remember her infectious laugh.

We recognize that nothing can bring Kim back. However, we need and deserve closure and are glad to see this next step today. We strongly urge the accused, his family, friends and acquaintances who were or are aware of any details related to this incident and withheld any information from the police to come forward now and do the right thing. We understand the accused and his family have also suffered from this senseless act of violence. We can only hope that the accused will cooperate and help everyone involved move forward.

We would also like to thank our extended family and friends for their endless love and support through this extremely difficult time.

At this time, we would like to ask the media to please respect the privacy of our family.

Full statement by IHIT Insp. Dave Chauhan

Good morning, I am Inspector Dave Chauhan, the Acting Officer-in-Charge of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

I am pleased to announce that after nine years since the tragic murder of 33-year-old Kimberly Hallgarth, IHIT has arrested an individual in connection with her death.

Today, I can announce that 32-year-old Joshua Boden has been arrested and charged with second degree murder.  He was arrested without incident on November 2, 2018 by IHIT and charged soon after by the B.C. Prosecution Service.

I realize the past nine years have been very difficult on Kim’s family and my deepest condolences go out to them.  I thank them for their patience and I hope the news of someone being held accountable for Kim’s death brings some semblance of peace.

For us to arrive at today’s outcome, it took a great deal of tenacity from all the investigators involved, both past and present.  Excellent foundational work was laid by investigators nine years ago, which continued into the present day by detectives of our specialized IHIT Cold Case Team.  IHIT’s Cold Case Team continually reviews and prioritizes IHIT’s unsolved cases for investigation that meet a number of key factors, including physical evidence obtained and new leads or information received.

The trial for former Abbotsford resident Jamie Bacon has been delayed again.

A spokesperson for the B.C. Prosecution Service confirmed this week that the case has now been adjourned until Jan. 19, 2019.

“The trial was adjourned to allow counsel the opportunity to review further materials,” Alisia Adams, of the B.C. Prosecution Service, confirmed this week.

Asked if there could now be a stay application due to the length of time the case has taken to get to trial, Adams said:

“The B.C. Prosecution Service cannot comment further on this matter as it remains before the court.”

Jury selection for Bacon’s trial had been set to begin Nov. 5. But on Friday, issues arose that led to the two-month delay.

Some details of Bacon’s background are covered by a publication ban.

Bacon is charged with counselling to commit murder related to an attempt on the life of a former associate on Dec. 31, 2008.

His trial was originally set for April 2018, but was then adjourned to September 2018, then to Nov. 5 and now to early 2019 by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Wedge.

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Three young men who police allege are linked to the ongoing Lower Mainland gang conflict have been arrested and charged.

Surrey RCMP said its investigation started last week after the agency’s gang enforcement team got a report related to threats and possession of a firearm.

“Investigators believe the alleged threats were related to the ongoing drug trade and gang conflict amongst parties known to one another,” Cpl. Elenore Sturko said in a news release Tuesday.

“The investigation included the execution of a search warrant on Nov. 2, 2018, at a residence in the Newton area of Surrey, where officers seized two starter pistols, a BB gun and an air-soft replica pistol.”

Officers also seized suspected cocaine, fentanyl and crack cocaine, as well as other items consistent with drug trafficking, she said.

Approximately $4,200 in cash believed to be proceeds of street-level drug sales was also located and seized.

Surrey resident Sagar Virk, 18, has been charged with two counts of uttering threats and three of breaching court-ordered conditions. Sandeep Mathroo, 21, is facing charges of uttering threats, assault with a weapon, using an imitation firearm, mischief and resisting or obstructing an officer. And Manjit Bahia, 22, has been charged with assault with a weapon, using an imitation firearm, uttering threats and mischief.

“Our top priority remains public safety,” Sturko said. “Our Surrey gang enforcement team and other specialized units continue to investigate individuals whose criminal activity puts public safety at risk, put pressure on gang members, and ensure they know they are not welcome in our city.”

The news release was issued the day after Surrey city council, under new Mayor Doug McCallum, voted to create a municipal police force to replace the RCMP.

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Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth called the death of inmate Alex Joseph in the back of a B.C. Corrections van last month “very disturbing” and said he hopes three separate investigations now underway will get to the bottom of what happened.

“Of course, it is very disturbing when a situation like this happens, because it shouldn’t happen,” Farnworth said of the death, detailed in a Postmedia report Saturday.

“That’s why these investigations are currently underway and we are going to find out what happened. People deserve answers and the family members deserve answers.”

Farnworth said B.C. Corrections is investigating Joseph’s death, which happened Oct. 4 on the side of the road north of 100 Mile House after his fellow inmates tried for more than an hour to get the guards’ attention.

The RCMP is also investigating the death, Farnworth said, as is the B.C. Coroners Service.

Three of the other inmates in the back of the van told Postmedia that they were shouting and banging on the walls after Joseph, 36, passed out and slumped onto the floor. But the correctional officers driving the van didn’t check on Joseph until it was too late, they said.

The inmates also said they believed Joseph overdosed. He was snoring at first after falling to the ground, but then went silent and began to turn blue.

They all said they were involuntarily transferred to the Lower Mainland, far away from family members, because of a staff shortage at the Prince George facility.

Two of them told Postmedia that police wearing tactical gear forcibly hauled them from their Prince George cells after they indicated they didn’t want to be transferred.

B.C. Corrections would not say why the inmates were transferred, but only that such moves happen “on an as-needed basis.”

Shelly Bazuik, a legal advocate with Prisoners’ Legal Services, said the involuntary transfers can take inmates away from support networks.

“These involuntary transfers have had all kinds of heart-wrenching and negative impacts on a prison population that is predominantly Indigenous,” Bazuik said, speaking generally.

Joseph was a member of the Beaver clan in the Nak’azdli Nation, near Fort St. James.

He had battled addiction for years and been in and out of jail. At the time of his death, he was in pretrial custody on a number of charges, including assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats.

The inmates interviewed said they travelled in tiny compartments within the B.C. Corrections van, wearing shackles and handcuffs and sitting on metal benches without seat belts.

The provincial department said in a statement that its “vehicles are not equipped with seat belts, as they can be used as a weapon against staff, other inmates or to harm themselves.”

Farnworth said what happened to Joseph “is a very tragic story.”

“I do know that the officers are all trained in naloxone,” he said.

Asked how they could use the life-saving kits if they didn’t stop to investigate why Joseph was in medical distress, Farnworth said: “That’s why I want to see those investigations and find out exactly what happened.”

He said the government will take necessary action once the results of the investigations are known.

“That’s what these investigations have to get to the bottom of. What happened and why did it happen? And from there, we can go, ‘OK, how can we make sure that this doesn’t happen again?’”

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A B.C. man connected to the Wolf Pack gang alliance has been sentenced to two years in a U.S. prison after admitting to international money laundering.

Omid Mashinchi, a former Vancouver realtor who was leasing high-end condos to Lower Mainland gangsters, pleaded guilty in July to moving cash across the border for Canadian drug gangs.

On Wednesday, he was sentenced in a Boston courtroom to 24 months in jail and ordered to pay almost $30,000 US in fines and damages.

U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton also added a year of supervised release to Mashinchi’s term, which he could apply to serve in Canada.

Mashinchi was charged in a sealed indictment in January 2018 and arrested in April, when he flew to the U.S. to visit family. He has been in custody since then.

U.S. court documents said that Mashinchi transferred funds from a bank in Vancouver to a bank in Boston over several months in 2017, knowing that the money — almost $240,000 US — was derived from drug trafficking.

Postmedia revealed in June that Mashinchi was facing money laundering charges and had been linked to condo leasing to gangsters.

Accused money launderer Omid Mashinchi and fugitive Mo Rahimi

One of the those condos, a penthouse in North Vancouver, was leased to Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal, who was murdered in the suite at 1550 Fern St. last December.

No one has been arrested in Grewal’s murder, but in June, the Integrated HomicideInvestigationTeam released images of suspects from surveillance videos near the apartment building.

Other condos and houses Mashinchi, 35, had leased out to unsavoury clients were targeted in drive-by shootings or were being used as stash houses for drug trafficking, police told Postmedia.

The sealed indictment originally filed against Mashinchi says that he knew the funds he was wiring “represented the proceeds of crime” and “that such transportation, transmission and transfer was designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”

The underlying crimealleged is “the manufacture, importation, sale and distribution of a controlled substance.”

No gang affiliation is named in the U.S. documents, but police confirmed to Postmedia that he is aligned with the Wolf Pack, a coalition which includes some members of the Hells Angels, some Red Scorpions, and some in the Independent Soldiers gang.

It has been locked for years in a deadly gang conflict with rivals from the United Nations gang and the Dhak-Duhre group. Gangsters on both sides have been slain, while others have been charged with murder and conspiracy.

Mashinchi has not yet faced any drug trafficking or money laundering charges in B.C. He was named by Vancouver police in August as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major drug trafficking operation called Project Territory linked to the Brothers Keepers and Red Scorpions.

Several of his associates were charged.

In announcing the charges, VPD Staff Sgt. Lisa Byrne spoke about the underworld leasing service that Mashinchi had been operating.

“My team found this really disturbing because we had rival gang members housed within dozens of metres of each other and the potential for spontaneous violence and gunplay was obviously something that was super concerning to us.”

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Twenty years after the slaying of Surrey journalist Tara Singh Hayer, his family’s most vivid memory is of his blood covering their garage floor.

“I ended up having to go back to the garage to clean up this massive pool of blood which was left from where dad was shot,” his daughter-in-law Isabelle recalled this week.

Daughter Rupinder also said she couldn’t erase the devastating scene from her mind: “Even afterwards, that image of where the blood was, you still see that.”

More frustrating than their haunting memories is the fact that no one has been charged in the unprecedented execution of a Canadian journalist, despite a two-decade-long police investigation.

“It makes you frustrated. It makes you angry,” Hayer‘s son Dave, a former Liberal MLA, said this week as the family met with Postmedia News.

Alexandra Ellerbeck, of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said it is extremely rare for a journalist to be murdered in Canada or the U.S.

But, she said, there is an expectation that the slayings that have occurred will be solved.

“We expect to see prosecutions and justice in cases of journalists murdered in Canada and the U.S. I think there is an expectation that those cases will be given high priority and they will be solved,” Ellerbeck said.

Solving the cases of murdered journalists “is such an important message for press freedom globally,” she said.

“Truth and justice are just so important for the families and the communities. It is really hard to overstate that. It is really frustrating, especially when there is a decent amount of evidence and information.”

The 62-year-old founder of the Indo-Canadian Times was gunned down just before dinner on Nov. 18, 1998, as he arrived at his Guildford home from his newspaper office.

Already paralyzed from a 1988 assassination attempt, he was transferring himself from his car to his wheelchair when his killer or killers struck. He didn’t have a chance.

For years, Hayer had used his Punjabi newspaper to become a vocal critic of violent extremist groups such as those linked to the 1985 Air India bombing plot that left 331 dead.

He had even agreed to be a Crown witness in the terrorism case, telling police that years earlier, while visiting a British colleague, he had overheard a confession by Ajaib Singh Bagri, one of the men later charged and acquitted in the bombing.

Hayer was no stranger to threats. In January 1986, a bomb targeting him was left on the doorstep of his family’s print shop. His son-in-law saw the wires sticking out of a McDonald’s bag and called police. Then in August 1988, days after he had published details of the confession he says he overheard, Hayer was shot in his newspaper office by a youth who later pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Months before his 1998 murder, Hayer wrote to the head of Surrey RCMP, expressing his concerns about the barrage of threats he was receiving.

“Given that these threats are escalating and becoming more severe in nature, I respectfully request your assistance in the investigation of these threats, which I hope will cease as a result,” Hayer said in his March 19, 1998, letter to then Chief Supt. Terry Smith.

“I respectfully request that you take immediate action with this regard. Time is of the essence. I am not capable of defending myself as easily as I used to when I could walk.”

Police responded five days later, scolding Hayer for not contacting them sooner.

“I am concerned that you have not brought these matters to our attention previously, given that there seems to be an ongoing series of these incidents,” Smith wrote. “We view these circumstances as most serious and if they are ignored or not reported, it makes our job exceedingly more difficult to complete.

“If you fear for your life, and you feel you are in immediate danger, you should be contacting our complaints line,” Smith said. Or Hayer could call 911 if the matter was “more urgent,” Smith suggested.

Warnings weren’t taken seriously, family says

The police did investigate, Dave Hayer said. They also installed security cameras at the family home — cameras that weren’t working the night of the fatal shooting.

“My dad, he didn’t want to feel like a prisoner with the police with him all the time,” he said. “But I don’t think the police did enough.”

He said police knew that the people after his dad were linked to terrorism. And there was additional evidence from the 1988 shooting that was not pursued after the youth who shot Hayer — Harkirat Singh Bagga — pleaded guilty.

For example, the .357 Magnum that Bagga used in the 1988 attack on Hayer had been provided by a California man who was also the owner of a gun found in the residence of Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only man convicted in the Air India bombing. So Bagga had links to the Air India suspects.

“There was a real threat there. And police did what they normally do — they said, ‘Tell us when somebody is there at your door ready to shoot you.’ Otherwise, they are not willing to provide enough protection.”

Hayer named several of the suspects behind the threats in his letter to police.

His son says there should have been no mystery as to the motive behind the murder.

“It is a case just like Air India, where they knew who the people were behind the scenes … and they also know the people behind the scenes who wanted my dad killed,” Dave Hayer said. “In a case like that, where you have a lot of background information about the people involved, still after 20 years charges haven’t been laid.”

Police have continually urged community members to come forward with information. But the fact that Hayer had agreed to be a witness in the biggest terrorism case in Canadian history and ended up dead doesn’t instil confidence in other potential witnesses, his son said.

“When you talk to any Canadian, it doesn’t matter what their background is — if the killers, the shooters or the criminals threatened your wife and your kids or your husband, would you still go and testify? They all say no. They are willing to risk themselves, but they are not willing to risk their family. Our justice system does not really protect the victims.”

John Major, the retired Supreme Court of Canada justice who headed the Air India inquiry, was extremely critical of police for how Hayer was treated.

“The manner in which the RCMP handled the entire Hayer affair leaves much to be desired,” he wrote in his 2010 report. “Tragically, the murder of Tara Singh Hayer, while he was supposedly under the watch of the RCMP, not only snuffed out the life of a courageous opponent of terrorism, but permanently foreclosed the possibility of his assistance in bringing the perpetrators of the bombing of Flight 182 to justice.”

Murder investigation overlapped with Air India probe

After Hayer was assassinated, the investigation into his 1988 attempted murder was reopened and new evidence gathered. So when Air India charges were laid against Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik in 2000, Bagri was also charged in the 1988 plot against Hayer.

But the charge was later stayed when the key witness sabotaged his evidence, claiming he had been threatened and no longer wanted to testify.

After Malik and Bagri were acquitted of all Air India charges in 2005, the RCMP ramped up its investigation into the Hayer murder, launching Project Expedio.

They already had a possible witness — a young gangster who earlier told police that his associate Robbie Soomel had admitted to being the “wheelman” the night Hayer was killed, while another gangster named Daljit Basran was the shooter.

The witness claimed Soomel told him the Babbar Khalsa — the terrorist group behind the Air India bombing — had paid the young hitmen $50,000.

Soomel was convicted in an unrelated gang murder in 2004 and remains in jail. Basran vanished in 2006 and is believed to be dead.

But Expedio investigators targeted Soomel’s older brother Raj in a “Mr. Big” operation, where undercover cops posed as organized criminals and befriended him. They tried to get him to provide information about the Hayer murder. He didn’t.

Raj Soomel did tell his new “friends” that he wanted to kill the witness who talked to police. He was charged and later pleaded guilty in 2008 to the attempted murder of the witness. Then Soomel was himself murdered in a case of mistaken identify while living in a Vancouver halfway house.

Project Expedio investigators not only searched for more evidence in Hayer’s 1998 murder, they took another look at the files in the 1988 attempted murder case and even the 1986 bomb plot.

And they conducted a second “Mr. Big” operation, targeting a suspect in the bomb plot named Jean Gaetan Gingras. Gingras admitted that he arranged for a device to be placed at Hayer’s Surrey office in January 1986 at the request of a Babbar Khalsa member in Montreal. But he told the undercover cop posing as a South American drug lord that the bomb was just to send Hayer a message. No one was supposed to get hurt, he said.

Gingras was charged and convicted of conspiring to purchase cocaine as part of the investigation, but was not charged in the bomb plot. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2012.

Killers looking over their shoulder, says retired Mountie

Retired RCMP deputy commissioner Gary Bass said this week that Expedio came close to laying charges in the Hayer murder.

“That was a major, major push and got very close to getting to the truth. But it didn’t get there,” said Bass, who retired in 2011.

The investigation into Hayer’s assassination has unique challenges, Bass said, just like the Air India terrorism case.

Bass said he has “absolutely” no doubt that Hayer’s murder was linked to both his journalism about the Air India suspects and the assistance he provided to police in the terrorism investigation.

The fact he was brutally murdered has created the catch-22 that has made his slaying tough to solve.

“The Hayer case is kind of proof about the dangers that are involved in getting involved in helping the police,” said Bass, who never met the journalist but has gotten to know his family well over the past two decades.

“Dave and his family have just been incredibly supportive over the years, which is really important to the investigative team to have that kind of support in the background.”

He said the public loses sight of “just how high-profile an individual Hayer was in terms of all the awards he received … and the fact that he is probably still the only journalist in Canada that has been killed for what he was doing. I think that kind of gets glossed over.”

Despite the challenges, Bass thinks Hayer’s killers will be brought to justice some day.

“There certainly have been lots of homicides much older than that which have been solved in recent years,” Bass said. “There are just so many people who had either involvement or knowledge, you always have the hope that someone is going to do the right thing for whatever reason, whether it’s conscience or being forced into it by circumstances.”

From all his years in policing, Bass is sure of one thing.

“A lot of people tend to think that when a case gets this old, the perpetrators are just kind of living the good life and thinking they got away with it. But I don’t think that is the case at all. In my experience, people who have committed murder are continually looking over their shoulder,” he said.

The RCMP did not respond to a Postmedia request for updated information about the Hayer murder investigation.

Paper’s survival keeps Hayer’s memorial alive

The Hayer family has kept the Indo-Canadian Times alive for the last 20 years as a tribute to their patriarch.

His daughter Daljit was the last to see him alive as he left the newspaper office in a Newton strip mall.

“Dad said, ‘I’m going now.’ I was the last one to put him in the wheelchair,” she recalled, her voice breaking.

Within an hour, she got the news of his shooting, as did Rupinder and their youngest sister Satpaul, who also works at the newspaper.

They called Dave and told him to go to the family house. They just said their dad was sick. When Dave got close to the house, there were police lights flashing, ambulances.

“Once I saw all that, I though, ‘Okay, somebody probably killed my dad.’ There were always so many threats. It wasn’t like this was a shock that this would happen,” he said.

Their mom, Baldev, told her children they must carry on with the newspaper. They went back to the Indo-Canadian Times office that night to remake the front page with news of his murder.

“I think the strength we got was from our mom,” Rupinder said. “I did not realize that our mom was that strong.”

And the next day, they all went around delivering the newspaper to their customers, as they have now done every week since.

Said Dave: “We have to continue what he started. That’s why after 20 years, our family is still running the paper.”

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Two B.C. man — one convicted in a high-profile 1982 slaying and the other an Independent Soldier gangster — have been charged in a major Winnipeg police investigation into a drug trafficking organization.

Allan Ronald Rodney, 70, was convicted of manslaughter in the 1982 death of Sharon Bollivar, the wife of a supermarket manager kidnapped for ransom in Kitsilano and later shot to death. Mohammad Shakil Khan, 39, is an IS member who joined the Wolfpack gang alliance after it formed in 2010.

Both are behind bars in Manitoba after getting arrested there last month, along with Rodney’s Surrey housemate, Shontal Vaupotic, and several people from Alberta and Manitoba.

Winnipeg Police allege that Khan, a Vancouver resident, headed a criminal organization that was moving millions of dollars of drugs from B.C. to Manitoba and that Rodney was one of the gang’s drivers.

The B.C. government now wants to seize some of Khan’s and Rodney’s assets as proceeds of their criminal activities.

The director of civil forfeiture filed a suit in B.C. Supreme Court last week, seeking Rodney’s interest in his Surrey house, as well a semi trailer and several other high-end vehicles. The director also wants Khan’s 2007 Mercedes forfeited.

IS clothing seized by police in 2015

The suit alleges that neither man had “sufficient legitimate income to have acquired or maintained” the house or vehicles subject of the seizure application.

The director lays out some details of the Winnipeg case.

“The investigation revealed that Mr. Khan was shipping kilograms of cocaine and ketamine from British Columbia for distribution in the Winnipeg area and Mr. Rodney and Ms. Vaupotic were transporting the shipments in a semi-truck,” the director’s statement of claim said.

Rodney and Vaupotic met with others now charged at least 18 times between February and October 2018 to exchange drugs for cash, according to the suit. The drugs were then transported to stash houses to be repackaged and distributed.

“During the investigation, members of the (Winnipeg Police Service) covertly entered the stash locations on various dates and located large quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, marijuana, oxycodone, ketamine, heroin, cutting agents and cash,” the court documents said.

On Oct. 18, police watched as Khan, Rodney, Vaupotic and a Winnipeg man “conducted an exchange of money and controlled substances.”

“Shortly thereafter, Mr. Rodney was arrested at the Flying J truck stop in Headingly, Man. At the time of Mr. Rodney’s arrest, he was in possession of approximately $100,000 in Canadian currency and one kilogram of cocaine.” Khan was arrested at a Winnipeg A&W with about $1,000 cash.

Police conducted searches with warrants in B.C., Alberta and Manitoba. At a Winnipeg house owned by Khan, they found 6.5 kilos of cocaine, about $100,000 and a semi-automatic handgun and ammunition.

At Khan’s east Vancouver house, police found another $100,000, a money counter and score sheets, as well as “Independent Soldiers paraphernalia including patches, sweaters, jackets and a painting.”

At Rodney’s Surrey home in the 19300-block of 73A Avenue, police also found $100,000 cash, the director said.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said “Khan is well known to police for having a long standing affiliation and ties to the B.C. gang landscape.”

The Winnipeg arrests are “a testament to the commitment of our policing partners at a national level to hold individuals accountable for their role in gangs and gang violence and the fear they illicit on our communities,” she said.

The civil forfeiture suit notes the criminal history of both Rodney and Khan.

“Mr. Rodney has a criminal record dating back to 1964 that includes convictions for fraud, break and enter and theft, possession of stolen property, manslaughter and Excise Tax Act offences,” the director of civil forfeiture said.

“Mr. Khan has a criminal record that includes convictions for assault, firearms offences, possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm. Mr. Khan has a lifetime ban to possess firearms.”

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A Vancouver man is wanted in the U.S for allegedly selling methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and other drugs through the notorious dark-web exchange known as the Silk Road.

James Ellingson, 42, was arrested Oct. 29 in Vancouver on charges of conspiracy to violate U.S. narcotics laws, conspiracy to import narcotics and conspiracy to money-launder between 2011 and 2013. Evidence gathered against Ellingson stemmed from the U.S. investigation into Silk Road founder Ross William Ulbricht, according to a recent B.C. Supreme Court bail ruling in the case.

Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten released Ellingson on bail earlier this month despite a U.S. request that he be held in custody. Ellingson, who has a criminal record on this side of the border, allegedly made $2 million using the dark web to sell his wares.

Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013, convicted in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison. After his arrest, the FBI seized various servers associated with Silk Road in Iceland, as well as backup servers in the U.S. The servers contained databases with Silk Road records showing various transactions, as well as private messages exchanged between Silk Road users, according to a U.S. affidavit quoted by DeWitt-Van Oosten in her Nov. 2 ruling.

The U.S. alleges Ellingson was using the online handle “Marijuanaismymuse” and was paid for his drug sales by Ulbricht using Bitcoin. Transactions for the Marijuanaismymuse account occurred between November 2011 and October 2013 and involved sales of meth, heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA and pot.

“U.S. authorities have gathered evidence that they say links James Ellingson to Marijuanaismymuse,” the B.C. judge said. “Some of the drug proceeds sent to Marijuanaismymuse were subsequently traced to two Bitcoin exchange accounts registered to Mr. Ellingson.” One of the accounts was opened in August 2013 under Ellingson’s name, using his email and provided his driver’s licence number and a utility bill. The other account was opened in May 2013, also using his name, identification and a Vancouver address.

“U.S. authorities obtained records from Google relating to Mr. Ellingson’s Gmail account. These records contained an email dated Sept. 23, 2013, with a username of Marijuanaismymuse and what appears to be a password to the Marijuanaismymuse Silk Road account,” the ruling said. “The Gmail records also contained notations of drug weights, names and prices consistent with server data from the Silk Road.”

The U.S. alleges Ellingson communicated with Ulbricht and received his Bitcoin payments under the username Redandwhite. A laptop recovered from Ulbricht contained a file labelled “save red” that contained photos referenced in his communications with Redandwhite. The photos showed “packaged drugs and Canadian currency.” And some showed a man in front of a building that the U.S. alleged looks like the picture on Ellingson’s driver’s licence.

DeWitt-Van Oosten said the U.S. is still putting together its package of evidence to support its extradition request for Ellingson. She said she had “relatively limited information about the nature of the offences with which Mr. Ellingson is charged and/or the evidence gathered in support.”

DeWitt-Van Oosten noted that Ellingson had “a criminal record that includes three convictions for possessing drugs for the purpose of trafficking, and one conviction for trafficking.” And he has been convicted of criminal harassment, possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon, assault and other crimes.

But she accepted his lawyer’s submission that the crimes were committed a long time ago, while he was suffering from addiction. She said Ellingson could be released on strict conditions because he had a supportive family willing to offer a $75,000 surety and a job.

“I appreciate that Mr. Ellingson has been charged with serious offences and, if extradited and convicted, he faces a lengthy period of imprisonment. I also appreciate that he has a criminal record for drug-trafficking,” DeWitt-Van Oosten said. “However, in consideration of the circumstances, as a whole, I am satisfied he has shown his detention in custody pending the extradition process is not justified.”

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A full-patch Hells Angel with the Hardside Chapter was found murdered under the Golden Ears Bridge on Sunday.

Chad Wilson, a former Hells Angel in San Diego, then Haney, joined the biker gang’s newest chapter when it formed last year.

Several of his friends had reported him missing the night before his body was found in the 20000-block of Wharf Street, Postmedia has learned.

Firefighters were first called to the scene about 11:30 a.m. Sunday. They immediately called in the Mounties when they found Wilson’s body.

Friends of Wilson’s, wearing their death-head patched Hells Angels vests, soon showed up at the scene.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is working with Ridge Meadows RCMP on the case.

Wilson’s name had not been released by police, but fellow bikers and family were already paying tribute to the dead 43-year-old on Sunday night.

Wilson was a high-profile and popular member of the Hells Angels and his murder is expected to increase the volatility in the Lower Mainland gang landscape.

Police are saying only that Wilson’s death was targeted and that he was known to police.

In fact, he was known to police in several parts of the world.

In 2013, Wilson was charged in Spain with B.C. Hells Angel Jason Arkinstall and two associates after police there seized half a tonne of cocaine from a sailboat that had arrived from Colombia.

The Spanish government said one of the B.C. bikers was on the vessel, while the others were waiting in Spain. They were arrested in a restaurant in Pontevedra, a port in the northwest of Spain.

Officials said the drug conspiracy was linked to a member of the San Diego chapter of the Hells Angels — the same chapter that Wilson had joined as a prospect on Jan. 28, 2005.

Wilson became a full-patch Hells Angel a year later on Jan. 28, 2006. Within a few months, he was in a jail cell in South Dakota, charged along with fellow HA member John Midmore with attempted murder for an Aug. 8, 2006 gunfight with members of the rival Outlaws biker gang.

Several bikers and passersby were struck. One Outlaw was paralyzed by Wilson.

But both he and Midmore claimed self-defence and were later acquitted.

Wilson, however, pleaded guilty in April 2009 to being an alien in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to four years in jail.

In his letter to the judge, Wilson claimed that he would have been killed if he had not shot at the Outlaws when he did.

“To have to go through this nightmare I have been through for the past 983 days … to have people think I am somehow at fault for the extreme injuries that not just Mr. Neale, but others suffered as well — psychological and physical — that is just outright wrong to do to me,” Wilson complained. “Don’t think for one second that I don’t live with the nightmare in my head.”

He said he had replayed the events that led to the shootout “over and over again in my head.”

“I come up with the same answer every time. If I did not have a gun that day — Aug. 8, 2006 — and I did not shoot back, I would be DEAD!!” he said. “This situation was 100% out of my control. I have the right to defend myself. I want to go home. I have everything great waiting for me, my drilling job, my kids, my wife and my dog and the number one thing, my LIFE!!”

He said being in jail is “true hell that I’ve been through.”

Hells Angels post tribute to their slain brother Chad Wilson

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Hells Angel Chad Wilson got nervous when he noticed the ball cap of “a big burly dude” entering the convenience store where he was looking at souvenir fridge magnets.

The hat said “F — k the other team” and he knew right away that the man was from the rival Outlaw motorcycle gang.

The message on the hat was “directed towards us,” Wilson would later testify at his trial for attempted murder. “It’s about the Hells Angels.”

Wilson, who was found murdered in Maple Ridge on Sunday, and his biker buddy John Midmore were in South Dakota for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August 2006 when they decided to take a drive around the area in Wilson’s pickup.

They stopped at Legion Lake Resort in Custer State Park because Midmore was hungry.

Wilson later testified that when he saw the Outlaws there, “I nearly shit my pants.”

Postmedia News has obtained transcripts of Wilson’s 2008 testimony at the trial, after which a jury acquitted him and Midmore — both Canadians — of attempted murder.

But Wilson later pleaded guilty to being an alien in illegal possession of a firearm and was sentenced to four years in prison.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has said it is looking into Wilson’s past for a possible motive for his slaying.

Evidence from his U.S. trial lays out the deep hatred between the two biker gangs.

Wilson testified that after seeing the Outlaws, he wanted to get out of the store and leave the park as soon as possible.

He turned his head away from them as he walked past, hoping they wouldn’t notice his Hells Angels death head tattoo which was “plain as day, like a billboard for the Hells Angels.”

He hopped into the passenger side of his white Ford F350 and took a bite out of an ice cream sandwich Midmore had bought him before heading off to use the washroom.

“I was just sitting there waiting for John to come out of the restroom,” Wilson testified.

“Right out of the side of the trees, here comes Outlaws. And at the time, it looks like they are walking towards the front of the truck and I freaked out.

“The first thing I did was grabbed my gun and put it in my waistband.”

Midmore showed up and they tried to get out of the parking lot, but the road was busy and they had to wait for a break in the traffic.

Chad Wilson is transferred to court, Oct. 17, 2008, in Sioux Falls, S.D. He and John Midmore are Hells Angels bikers charged with a 2006 gunfight with rival Outlaws. Lawyers on Monday No. 3, 2008 have started questioning possible jurors in the trial of two men.

The rival Outlaws came up to them, he said. One of them who was later identified as Nathan Frasier was in front of the truck.

“As soon as the truck pulled ahead, he looked like a deer in the headlights and he reached and dropped the gun from his waistband. All I did was lift up my shirt so they could see the gun. And go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Wilson got out of the truck as he saw Frasier pick up his gun.

“All hell broke lose,” he testified. “There was a flash of light and then sound and I just bent down. I racked my gun and as I came up to start shooting, I was shooting back at him.”

He managed to get back in the truck where Midmore was ducking down and attempting to steer.

“So I grabbed the wheel, put my foot on top of his, hit the gas and off we went,” Wilson said. “That’s what really happened that day.”

He admitted to bringing both rifles and handguns to the biker party, storing some in a secret compartment in his truck so “I could get some guys together and we could go out shooting.”

After the shootout, Wilson’s truck was found abandoned on a logging road with a .40 calibre gun magazine, three .40 calibre semi-automatic pistols and ammunition inside.

Five people on the Outlaws side were wounded, including Danny Neace, who was paralyzed from the waist down.

Neace and several other Outlaws were later convicted of plotting to fight other Hells Angels in Michigan a few days before the Custer park shootout.

Wilson testified that when he saw the Outlaws that day, “I was terrified.”

“There were nine of them and two of us,” he said. “Like being in the Hells Angels, you are always aware of the Outlaw issue. It’s a huge issue in our club.”

The Outlaws advertise on their Canadian website that they’ve opened a “prospective chapter” in B.C. But police don’t consider that the HA rivals have any real membership or influence in this province.

In Alberta, however, the Outlaws now have two chapters and there have been skirmishes between the two gangs.

Neither the Outlaws nor the Hells Angels responded to emailed requests for comment.

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