'It's a blitzkrieg on biker gangs':
The wave of arrests will send the The Hells Angels scrambling,
crime experts tell Karina Roman.

The wave of early-morning raids against the Hells Angels in
Quebec yesterday strikes a severe blow to the motorcycle gang and
organized crime in general, experts say.

"It will definitely have a big impact,'' says Antonio Nicaso, an
organized crime expert and author of Global Mafia.

"We're talking about maybe 150 people arrested. Of course this
will have an impact across Canada.''

The Hells Angels' operations are so interwoven that a huge bust in
one region will affect other regions, he explains.

A large number of people taken out of circulation is the immediate
benefit, but the police operation can also be seen as a strategic
manoeuvre to shake up the biker gangs and make them more vulnerable
to future police action.

"This kind of exercise can do an awful lot to destabilize an
organization,'' says David Harris, former chief of strategic
planning for CSIS, Canada's spy agency. "It's a rude awakening for
an organization that in many ways has been seen to be having its own
way for a while now.''

Such sweeping raids and arrests will produce a profound level of
uncertainty in those that so far remain untouched, he says. With so
many members in police custody, bikers will fear that some of those
arrested will make a deal with the police and become turncoats.

"Theirs is an organization that relies absolutely on levels of
confidence and confidentiality,'' says Mr. Harris, adding that their
strength will be sharply undermined by a lack of trust. With morale
down, those yet to be arrested might also turn on their fellow
bikers.

Hard questions will also surface: What spurred the raids? Why were
some people picked up and others not? Did someone from inside betray
them? Did police merely use wiretaps or was the gang actually
infiltrated?

"These people don't know where this came from. They wake up one
morning and it's a blitzkrieg on biker gangs,'' says Mr. Harris.
Damage control will become a priority and many members will prefer
to lie low -- so operations will be interrupted, says Mr. Harris,

The Hells Angels were likely targeted, as opposed to their rivals
The Rock Machine, because of their power and high profile, says Mr.
Nicaso.

Marc Richer, a spokesman for the RCMP says they are confident in
the evidence they have collected, and that more arrests may result.
But he says they must be cautious in predicting impact because it is
now in the court's hands.

Bill C-95, Canada's anti-gang law was installed in 1997 to give
police broader powers in dealing with crime organizations, such as
allowing wire-taps for up to one year and providing harsher
penalties for gang crimes and carrying explosives with criminal
intent. Police must prove the group is made up of at least five or
more people who have the primary purpose to commit indictable
offences.

But the legislations has rarely been tested and if relied upon to
convict, might prove toothless, says Mr. Nicaso.

"The risk is that all of the effort that the police have made
might become a waste of time if the lenient judicial system allows
them to be released after a few years,'' says Mr. Nicaso. He also
warns that although the raids will have an impact in Canada, they'll
do little to dent Hells Angels' worldwide operations.

G. Robert Blakey, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame,
wrote the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act, the U.S.
anti-gang law and was consulted by the Canadian government when C-95
was being written.

He says the U.S. law has been used successfully to prosecute biker
gangs and has had a significant impact in curtailing their
activities.

"In the U.S. it's so frequent it doesn't even make the news,'' he
says, adding that Canada is usually about 15 years behind the U.S.
in terms of criminal prosecution. But he is glad to hear Canada is
now using such legislation.

"More power to the Mounties,'' he says.
March 29, 2001 / Ottawa Citizens