A star witness at the Surrey Six trial stood by his testimony that accused killer Matt Johnston confessed to him outside a Coquitlam apartment the day of the murders, even though police surveillance didn’t record Johnston’s arrival at the time.
The former Red Scorpion enforcer, who can only be identified as Y, said he is “100 percent” sure that Johnston hopped in his vehicle as he waited for Jamie Bacon outside the building where another ...
About 80 Hells Angels and supporters met at the biker gang’s east Vancouver clubhouse Saturday for their annual memorial ride in honour of a full-patch member who was murdered in 1988.
Police officers on motorcycles and in unmarked cars were also on the scene monitoring the event.
East End chapter president John Bryce said he doesn’t know why there was such a big police presence.
“We don’t even need them here. We do it every ...
It was his tattoos that gave American Hells Angel fugitive Troy Andrew Scholder away.
An alert anti-gang cop noticed H-A-M-C across the fingers of his right hand, for Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and D-A-G-O across the left, for the San Diego chapter.
Scholder, 33, was caught during a routine traffic stop near Langley’s Willowbrook mall on May 8.
He said he had only arrived in Canada May 6, despite being on the lam since August ...
The Okanagan is a popular summer destination for thousands of folks across B.C., and that apparently includes a few gangsters.
Kelowna RCMP delivered a blunt message to B.C. and Alberta gang members today: stay out.
Gangsters are not welcome in Kelowna.
They can go jet ski somewhere else.
“By using our own expertise as well as that of police from other jurisdictions we will be able to quickly and efficiently identify gang members and their ...
A gang associate wounded in a brazen restaurant shooting in January was ordered deported from Canada Wednesday because of his criminal history.
Nebojsa (Nick) Kljajic, 37, admitted through his lawyer Dennis McCrea that he was ineligible to remain in Canada because of his previous criminal convictions for conspiracy and trafficking marijuana.
Immigration and Refugee Board member Laura Ko ruled that Kljajic, who came to Canada from Croatia, is “inadmissible on grounds of organized criminality.”
“I ...
Applause and cheers broke out in B.C. Supreme Court Friday when three Hells Angels associates were convicted of manslaughter in the vicious fatal beating of a Kelowna dad.
Justice Mark McEwan found brothers Matthew and Daniel McRae, as well as their pal Anson Schell, guilty for their roles in the brutal attack that left Dain Phillips dead in June 2011.
McEwan also acquitted a fourth accused, Robert Cocks, saying that while he was present at ...
A former member of the Renegades biker gang was sentenced Thursday to two years in jail for a vicious attack on three people in Prince George last December.
Jason Dennis Townsend, 37, was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault causing bodily harm for the assault on two men and a woman outside a local nightclub early Dec. 6.
The entire incident was captured on video, showing Townsend punching a ...
The wife of a Kelowna man beaten to death by two Hells Angels in 2011 smiled and said she was happy after three HA associates were sentenced to prison Thursday for their roles in the attack.
Jeannie Phillips declined to say more as she left the Vancouver Law Courts with relatives, beaming after three young men were handed terms of between three and five years for being parties to the fatal beating of her husband ...
Infamous Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and La Familia have sent representatives to the Lower Mainland to broker drug deals with local gangs, The Vancouver Sun has learned.
A Sun investigation has uncovered increasing links between B.C. drug gangs and the notoriously violent cartels that have wreaked havoc along Mexico’s northern border.
For years, local crime groups travelled south to the U.S. and Mexico to work with the cartels. Police now confirm that the Mexican crime ...
Surrey RCMP is hoping someone will recognize three “persons of interest” in the stabbing of two Hells Angels associates inside a nightclub earlier this month.
Police released video of the suspect trio entering Shakerz Show Lounge, 10458 Whalley Boulevard, on Dec. 1 just before 11 p.m.
About 11:45, police were called to the strip club and found the two victims inside receiving first aid.
Mounties identified them as “known associates to the Hells Angels Motorcycle ...
Some of the inner workings of the Nanaimo Hells Angels have been laid out in a B.C. Supreme Court ruling convicting one of the gang’s original members of extortion and theft.
Robert (Fred) Widdiefield was part of the plot to strong-arm his former business partner and close friend into handing over money and property, including a yacht called Dream Chaser, Justice Robin Baird said in the ruling, released Friday.
The former friend, identified only as ...
A Vancouver man who pleaded guilty in San Diego to laundering money for a Mexican cartel was sentenced to time served Monday.
Ariel Savein was handed a term of 30 months, which amounts to the time he spent in pre-trial custody in both Vancouver and San Diego. Savein will also remain on supervised release for three years, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn L. Huff ruled.
Written submissions filed for the sentencing hearing by Savein’s defence ...
A B.C. man is facing trafficking charges in connection with a Saskatchewan drug investigation linked to the Hells Angels.
Vancouver resident Thai Duong Tran, 26, appeared in Saskatoon Provincial Court Thursday morning, accused of trafficking cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine.
He was arrested, along with 13 others, after a major investigation targeted organized crime in Saskatchewan.
Tran has no criminal record in B.C., according to the online court database.
As part of the probe, dubbed Project ...
Video footage of motorcyclist racing down a Guildford Town Centre escalator while fleeing Surrey RCMP has been released online.
Posted at Live Leak, the video, which was recorded Feb. 20, begins with a mix of aerial and dashcam views of the chase through the streets of Surrey before cutting to surveillance footage from inside the mall of the motorcycle roaring down the escalator and then through a mall exit.
At one point, you can ...
A 45-year-old man who once led the Renegades biker gang was gunned down Sunday in Prince George.
Jason Alexander (Jay) Hall was found lying on the corner of 5th Avenue and Gillett Street about 10:30 a.m.
He was rushed to the University Hospital of Northern B.C. but died later in the day from at least one gunshot wound, RCMP Cpl. Craig Douglass said Tuesday.
“Police believe this was a targeted act,” he said.
Investigators are ...
The B.C. government wants to change its tactics in a long-running civil forfeiture case against three Hells Angels’ chapters.
Lawyer John Hunter told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies Thursday that the government will try to prove the Hells Angels is a criminal organization and that its clubhouses should be forfeited because they would be used for further criminal activity.
Hunter asked Davies to amend the government’s pleadings to remove individual criminal allegations against several ...
Dozens of Canadian Hells Angels took their death-head-emblazoned vests to Greece this month for an international biker parade and convention, but at least three of them didn’t return.
A trio of full-patch Alberta Hells Angels are in jail in Greece after being arrested last week following the near-fatal beating of a Greek man.
At least nine B.C. Hells Angels also attended the international meeting, in which more than 2,000 Hells Angels from 500 chapters descended on Athens. Some of the B.C. Hells Angels stopped along the way in Paris to do some sightseeing at Notre Dame Cathedral.
The three Alberta Angels made a court appearance last Friday. The 41-year-old man they allegedly beat up on the island of Corfu is on life support.
The Canadian government is providing consular services, spokesman Francois Lasalle confirmed, without identifying the people involved.
“We are aware of reports of Canadian citizens detained in Greece. Canadian officials are in contact with the individuals and providing consular assistance as required,” Lasalle said in an email to The Vancouver Sun.
“Due to the Privacy Act, further details on this case cannot be released.”
Mike Tucker, of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team, said two of the Hells Angels arrested are from the Westridge chapter in Edmonton and one is from the Nomads, which are based in Red Deer.
Tucker said his agency is working with Greek officials.
Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Staff Sgt. Len Isnor said it’s not known yet what charges the three Canadians may face.
“All I know it was an assault. How that assault took place, I couldn’t tell you,” said Isnor, a leading Canadian expert on the Hells Angels.
Isnor said he has been liaising with his European counterparts about the world gathering, an annual event, and the involvement of Canadian Hells Angels.
“We speak back and forth. We knew everything that was going on,” he said.
Isnor said he doesn’t have the final tally of Canadian bikers that attended.
“Every chapter in Canada — and there are 31 chapters — has to send at least one representative and some send two because they don’t like to have one guy travelling alone,” Isnor said.
There are nine B.C. chapters.
The week before the meeting, two Hells Angels from the Mission chapter were photographed outside Notre Dame in Paris, admiring the cathedral’s stone angels. The Sun has confirmed they went on to the Greek meeting.
“They are there basically on vacation, but they do their business,” Isnor said.
He said the “world run” happens once a year and includes a procession with bikers from around the world riding their Harleys through the street with their country’s logo on their backs.
“It is in a different country every year,” said Isnor, who has attended world runs in the past. “They also have what’s called their world meeting.”
Only Hells Angels executive members from each country attend the meeting, Isnor explained.
“World meetings are to resolve world motions. A lot of motions come forward that would change the constitution and the way they do business on the surface,” Isnor said. 
But don’t expect the world run to be held anywhere in Canada or the U.S.
Isnor said Canadian immigration law “doesn’t allow any members of a criminal organization into Canada, so they can’t have a world run in Canada.”
“They can’t have a world run any longer in the United States also because they also created a law similar to what we have in Canada that won’t allow international members of the Hells Angels into the United States.”
Hells Angels spokesman Ricky Ciarniello did not respond to a request for information about the biker arrests or the international meeting.
The B.C. Hells Angels and the provincial government are locked in a long-running court battle over the ownership of three biker clubhouses.
The B.C. Civil Forfeiture office says the clubhouses should be forfeited because the HA is a criminal organization.
The bikers are trying to get the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Act struck down as unconstitutional.
Three Alberta bikers arrested after the Hells Angels international meeting and parade in Greece last month are now facing murder charges.
The trio – two from the Hells Angels Westridge chapter and one with the Nomads in Red Deer – were originally charged with attempted murder after the June 7 beating of a Greek man in Corfu.
The victim was taken off life support and died June 27th, according to his sister.
His funeral was held on July 2nd.
Sources in Greece and Canada said the accused have now had their charges upgraded to the more serious murder counts.
Greek man allegedly attacked by 3 Canadian Hells Angels
Dustin Swanson, a prospect in the Edmonton-based Westridge chapter, is charged with intentional homicide.
Fellow Westridge member Nick Dragich and Brent Koziak, of the Nomads chapter in Red Deer, are both now charged with `collaboration’ homicide for allegedly assisting Swanson in the beating.
The sister, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, told The Vancouver Sun that her brother had gone into a friend’s restaurant early June 7th to “grab a bite” after visiting his recently-widowed mother in her village.
When he came out of the restaurant one of the bikers, wearing his Hells Angels vest, was sitting on the victim’s motorcycle. Two other Hells Angels were beside him.
“My brother told them sorry you’re on my bike and I want to go home,” she said.
“They said OK. But when my brother went to his bike and leaned in, they attacked him from behind. After the first hit, he fell on the ground. Then they started kicking him in the head. All the witnesses saw it, but they are afraid for their lives.”
The three bikers were arrested a short time later, covered with blood, the sister said.
She said the family is devastated at the loss of her 41-year-old brother, who had been the only remaining male in the family after their father died May 24.
A Canadian government official wouldn’t comment on the upgraded charges but said “Consular services are being provided as required, to the Canadian citizens who have been arrested in Greece.”
“Due to the Privacy Act, further details on these cases cannot be released,” department of foreign affairs spokesman Nicolas Doire said in an email.
Hells Angels spokesman Rick Ciarniello also has not responded to an emailed interview request.
The Hells Angels held their annual international “ride” and meeting in early June in Greece. At least 30 Canadians – including nine from B.C. – attended.
Some bikers stayed on afterwards, including the three Alberta men now charged.
Dragich, an MMA fighter, posted about his trip on Facebook June 5, along with a photo taken in Greece of himself with some German Hells Angels.
The maximum penalty for a murder conviction in Greece is life without the possibility of parole for 16 years.
A former B.C. gangster has been arrested in Ottawa on drug and weapons charges.
Damion Ryan, who is now a prospect for the Ontario Nomads’ chapter of the Hells Angels biker gang, was picked up on July 17.
Det. Staff-Sgt. Len Isnor, of the Ontario Provincial Police, confirmed Ryan’s arrest to The Vancouver Sun.
Isnor said the investigation by the OPP’s Biker Enforcement Unit is continuing.
Ryan was associated with the so-called Wolf Pack alliance while he was in Metro Vancouver. It consisted of some Independent Soldiers’ gangsters, some members of the Red Scorpion gang and some Hells Angels.
The alliance was locked in a bloody gang war that resulted in the slayings of several high-profile gangsters like Red Scorpion Jonathan Bacon, Sandip Duhre and brothers Gurmit and Sukh Dhak.
Ryan’s name surfaced earlier this year in a B.C. Supreme Court ruling in a gun case involving his associate Dean Wiwchar, who’s a suspect in the 2012 Duhre murder. The ruling said an informant told Vancouver Police in April 2012 that Ryan and two others “were planning a ‘rip’ or a shooting.” Police saw Ryan, Wiwchar and another man driving around a Burnaby neighbourhood where investigators believed they were hunting for someone. Ryan then accompanied Wiwchar and his co-accused Philip Juan Ley, to Mexico on April 18, 2012, the ruling said.
Wiwchar was found guilty of several gun charges in June and is awaiting sentencing. Ley earlier pleaded guilty to three of the firearms counts.
Ryan faced dozens of firearms charges in B.C. that were thrown out by a provincial court judge in Vancouver three years ago.
His lawyer successfully argued that the RCMP violated his Charter rights when an emergency response team forcibly entered his Burnaby basement suite after shots were fired outside. The judge said three handguns and an AK-47 were not in “plain view” and that the ERT improperly searched the suite, finding two guns behind a stuffed animal and assault rifle under a mattress.
Ryan was wounded in a gangland shooting at an Oak Street restaurant in Vancouver on Dec. 12, 2010. Ten people were injured in the unprecedented shootout, which Vancouver police said at the time was in retaliation for the Oct. 16, 2010 assassination of Gurmit Singh Dhak at Burnaby’s Metrotown Mall.
Ryan was sentenced to five years in 2005 in connection with a violent home invasion involving a marijuana-growing operation.
