The Deadliest Biker War in History: Hells Angels vs Rock Machine
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And sold. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. The morning of September 13th, 2000, in the parking lot of the Montreal Journal newspaper, Michel Auger, a famed crime reporter, has found himself on the bad side of notorious Quebec Hells Angel Maurice Mamboucher. And that's not a good place to be if you enjoy being alive.

Boucher's Hells Angels are at war with everyone, and they're winning. They've been decimating their opponents, the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club, in the ongoing biker war over control of Montreal's drug market. Over just a six-week period in 1998, they kill seven of the rifle club. They also managed to flip one of the members of the secretive Dark Circle Group. They're the Montreal business owners who are heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering that linked up with Rock Machine to help fund their war on the Angels.

In 1998, though, one of them decides it's time to join up with the Hells Angels instead and reveals the up until then secret identities of the members of his former group.

The Hells Angels start picking them off one by one, and things get so bad, some members of the Dark Circle turn themselves into the police and confess to a bunch of crimes, figuring that it's better to go to prison than take their chances at survival on the streets. That's how powerful Mom Boucher and his boys have grown, especially since he got off scot-free after ordering the murders of two prison guards completely at random, simply to send a message.

The Angels are even said to be following home police officers and setting squad cars on fire. They think they're untouchable, but it turns out Mambuche might be getting a little carried away. Auger is in the parking lot, getting his laptop from his car when he's shot six times. Lying in a pool of his own blood, he's able to call an ambulance himself. Later, police find a silencer, gun, and stolen car two blocks away.

He's kept in a hospital, the location secret, and he's guarded by police. But he survives and soon gets back to work. I've been shot in the back, not in the head, he says. This, though, seems like it might be a bridge too far for the general public. There's protests and increased pressure from journalists, politicians, everyone to do something about the out-of-control biker gangs terrorizing the streets.

There's soon talk of passing a new anti-gang law modeled on the U.S.'s RICO statutes, which has been used for decades to absolutely destroy gangs, mafias, and other organized crime groups in the States. This is something Canada's underworld does not want.

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Welcome back to the Underworld Podcast, the audio program that dares to ask the question, how many extremely violent groups can you make fun of before it catches up to you? Gonna do a little bit longer of an intro right here since we have so many new listeners in the last month, thanks to our friends at Spotify. My name is Danny Gold. I am based in New York City. And my co-host, who I switch off leading episodes and writing episodes with every week, is Sean Williams, who is a British man now based in New Zealand. He's a British man who's been in the business for a long time.

because of many, many open warrants for a series of crimes involving the London Zoo that I am not at liberty to talk about because of pending lawsuits. Both of us are journalists with about 15 or so years of experience, and we've reported all around the world on topics like war,

organized crime, gangs, and things of that nature. I think what, I'm probably six continents. We haven't done Antarctica yet. And probably, I don't even know. I mean, you've done way more than I have, but probably something like 50 to 60 countries between the two of us. Yeah. Yeah. Does Europe count? Because that's like 100 countries. So let's call it 150. Okay. Yeah. Somewhere in that neighborhood. But we started making this podcast over the pandemic to tell stories on organized crime, gangs, and drugs, and things like that.

Because, you know, we had no other work. And seriously, how many true crime podcasts about a serial killer dentist or whatever the hell it is this week? Can you actually listen? Yeah, I mean, apart from the usual existential dread and stories about Moldovan gangsters, that pretty much sums us up. So we've had some really good tips via email lately.

So I think I'm going to do one of them for either our next show or the one after that. So keep them coming, guys. They're really good. And before we move on, I just want to say, I just want to bask in the glory of a 2-1 win for England in the Underworld Podcast Derby against Slovakia. So that was nice. Your boys took a hell of a beating there.

Except they didn't. And it was extremely embarrassing. But yeah, that's why I've been up since 3.15 a.m. And that's why I'm also drinking a glass of champagne as we're going. Because I'm like that guy.

Fancy boy. But yes, please follow us here on Spotify or iTunes. Support us at patreon.com slash underworldpodcast. Or you can sign up on Spotify or iTunes for bonuses. Follow us on socials. You know, all that nonsense. But now, when we last left off with the Hells Angels in Quebec...

They were trying to take over the drug market by telling every other gang or DTO, drug trafficking organization, to essentially bend the knee. And this did not go over well and escalated into an all-out war.

With an alliance known as The Alliance, led by a motorcycle gang called Rock Machine, some other groups, and a shadowy, secretive group of business owners involved in the drug game called The Dark Circle. All this stuff. I mean, it's just like great movie stuff, you know, like The Dark Circle. Oh, yeah. You can't really, you can't make up better stuff than that. The year we are in right now is 1995.

Dozens have already been killed, including a child in a car bomb where fingers point at the Hells Angels. And the police in Quebec are finally starting to attempt to crack down on them.

The Hells Angels, of course, are led by the charismatic, psychopathic force of nature known as Mom Boucher. The Rock Machine are led by the Casetta Brothers, but they took some hits due to massive cocaine trafficking arrests. And I think that about does the catch up, yeah? Yeah, I mean, minus a bunch of insane murders and other stories people can hear about in part one, which they can listen to after what, like listening to...

Another 250 episodes we've done so far. I mean, Brian Epstein didn't even have a back catalogue like us at this point. We've got...

Tons and tons of stuff. That's just a shout out for these new listeners that are tuning in. We're going to have to address them every other sentence. No, I think we're good. I think we're good now. So during this time, the police have an inside man in the Hells Angels, a guy by the name of Danny Kane, who turned informant because he was pissed about being passed over for promotions and a few other things. Boucher has also formed a side club of the hardest hitters in the Hells Angels.

They're called the Nomads. They're what's known as the Nomad Club, which means that they can go in any angel's territory and operate there anywhere and everywhere. And they are some bad dudes. So late 1995, early 1996, all hell is breaking loose. And

And the Hells Angels are striking at Rock Machine and they align super hard. Meanwhile, Danny Cain is providing info for the authorities. While at the same time, he's getting in deeper and deeper with the Angels. That involves partaking in, I think it was up to 11 murders at one point in the years that he was undercover. Yeah, it was very controversial, apparently, the police involvement with him. But he's providing authorities with a ton of information. And he actually ends up joining the Nomad Squad, which...

which is pretty wild if you think about it. And things are starting to get weird.

Kane is making money with the police. He's being paid 2K a week. So he needs a sort of hustle to explain to his biker buds where the money is coming from. So the police actually help him set up a sex magazine. I'm telling you guys, Montreal, Quebec, it's a wild place. And it is a gay sex magazine that doubles as a classified listing for escorts. And Kane also happens to be bi, which I thought was kind of interesting. Yeah, how is your side hustle going, by the way?

What are you trying to say, bud? I just love that the police officer's like, yeah, we'll make it gay, right? And they're like, yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll make it gay. We're going to make it gay. He might have chosen that. I don't really know what the decision-making process was in what the focus, the magazine. I think there was a guy in the meeting of detectives and he's like,

What if we focus on feet? And then they just kind of went for it. Why not, guys? I don't know. But apparently he was making the money and it was working because that's how in 1996, he links up with a 300 pound ex-con named Aimee. Is that how you say that in French? A-I-M-E. Aimee, yeah, yeah. Aimee Sennard, who had put an ad in the magazine after getting out of prison. He was an ex-con arrested for a bunch of stuff.

Kane ends up leaving his wife for this guy, and they start being gay and doing crimes together in 1997. Kane gets Samard into the Rockers, which is another Hells Angels sort of affiliate or farm team club. He actually has him commit a bunch of murders for him, including one where Samard is caught on camera and another where he kills a Rock Machine member at a floor hockey game, which is very Canadian.

Samard leaves his gun at a gym where the Hells Angels hang out. A janitor finds it, and this all ends with Samard getting arrested, confessing, and then eventually getting Kane sent to prison as well. Samard eventually turns informant and testifies against the Angels, but we need to back up here for one second. Yeah, I mean, I'm not even sure I'd want this clown as an informant. He sounds terrible. And by the way, floor hockey, I mean, come on, guys, just play cricket or go skate and like just pick one sport.

Don't do them both. Floor hockey is kind of fun. But yeah, you're going to see he is not a good witness and not reliable. But around the same time, all these shootings are happening. That's when Boucher decides he's had enough of the Canadian authorities pressing him. And this is when he decides he's going to go to war against the state.

If you guys listened to the episode two episodes ago, that's the cold open from that last episode. You know, to do this, Boucher decides he's going to kill some prison guards. Not him, but he's going to order the killing of prison guards to teach the police not to mess with the angels. This is when he links up with a guy named Stéphane Gagné. Yeah, Gagné. Yeah. I think, sorry, a lot of these names are French, man. And a lot of names in this one, I'm...

I'm doing what I can. I'm just going off like old French footballers, so I don't really know either. We mispronounce everything here. I mean, I do. You're good at that, but you guys will. You'll learn.

Gagné, he's your typical biker drug dealer, dropped out of school in seventh grade. His uncle was actually a pretty well-known gunman, so he kind of followed in his footsteps. He became a drug addict, but graduated to running a bunch of crack houses, and he was making a solid living off that as a dealer, apparently. So in 1994, when this biker war kicks off, Gagné is forced to make a decision. He could link up with the Angels, or he could join with Rock Machine and the Alliance. He actually ends up meeting with Boucher face-to-face and decides to deal for the Angels, but

But he's soon locked up in prison for dealing. And at that point, the prison is divided into a Hells Angels wing and a Rock Machine controlled wing. He's sent to the Rock Control ring, I think, by mistake, or they don't believe that he's an angel. The Rock Machine guys and their affiliates, they tell him to swear allegiance to Rock Machine. And they try to make him step on a photo of Mom Boucher, which just seems very...

I don't know. Kind of child, you know, a little juvenile. He says no, and they beat him badly enough that he gets sent to the hospital. He gets revenge when he gets out. He beats a guy. He shanks a guy, the guy who does it. And he's later transferred out to another prison where Boucher is serving a quick six-month sentence. Oh, yeah, another one of his sentences. What's that for? Like mass murder? Or do you only get three months for that in Canada?

Thank you. He gets off for that, as we'll see. Boucher, of course, runs that prison. He goes so far as to have the home of a prison warden burnt down because the prison warden refused to give him a day pass. I think I didn't get the full story on this, but I feel like I saw it passing in my research. He like organized a protest because he hates shepherd's pie and he wants them to stop serving it. So he organizes like I didn't get confirmation on this, but I feel like I saw that somewhere, which is.

shepherd pie is not great so like i'm i i was gonna say that was the one thing that made me hate him but um now you've just you've just put yourself in my black book as well i like a chicken pot pie but i'm not a shepherd's pie guy these are not the same thing these are not the same things at all these are just these are these just have pie in the name but uh okay let's move on yeah

In prison, Boucher and Gagné become best buds. And after they're both released in 1996, they link up on the outside and he starts putting in work for Boucher. So when Boucher has this idea to go to war against the state to scare everyone, including informants. By the way, he's clued in now that there's likely an informant somewhere in his organization. He's getting super paranoid, which is another reason he decides to have some prison guards killed. And Gagné is apparently such a pain in the ass in prison to the authorities that

that when this first starts happening, they actually suspect him just because he gave them such a hard time. So he puts Gagné on this. He gets another one of his shooters, I think one of his bodyguards. I think there's one other angel who's involved in it. So there's only really four of them who know what the deal is. Maybe five.

They study all the guards leaving the prison. They're professional killers. They really take the time to plot it out. It's not like a spontaneous thing. I think they call it off once or twice because it doesn't look right. They're plotting escape routes, vehicle switches, everything. They end up following a prison guard when she leaves the parking lot in a van. And yeah, they kill a woman guard. They don't know it's a woman. When Boucher finds out, he does not mind, but they kill her unknowingly. They follow her van on motorcycles, pull up alongside her, shoot her, kill

Killer, go to a shopping mall, ditch the bikes, then go to the woods and burn everything. And they get away with it. All of this, by the way, is meticulously detailed in the main source I used for this episode, which is the book The Road to Hell by Julian Scher and William Marsden. So definitely pick that up if you guys want even more details. You know, we pulled from a bunch of other stuff in the Montreal Gazette. I think the...

What's the star? Not the North Star. Whatever. A bunch of Canadian newspapers, but I'll cite them. The Globe and Mail. Toronto Star? I don't know. Yeah. Globe and Mail. Toronto Star, Globe and Mail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Canadian media did a great job reporting this. And there's a great BBC, not BBC, CBC episode.

about this biker battle. It's quick. It's like half an hour, but it's very well done. They do cool stuff about organized crime, CBC. Yeah. Yeah, they do great stuff, man. Definitely recommend you guys check out their podcast. They have, I think, a couple of seasons, but like short, you know, like eight episodes. So two months work for us. No big deal. But they do it on Canadian crime and organized crime in general. And it's very well done. It is, of course, all over the news when this prison guard gets killed and the cops are furious.

Very few angels know about the hit. They really wanted to keep it secret because, you know, when this sort of thing happens, it is like a full on war against whoever they think did it until they figure it out. That happens in June and it doesn't get solved, though the authorities are pretty sure the Hells Angels are behind it.

Then in September, Boucher decides they need to do it again. And this time it doesn't go as smoothly. Garnier and the shooters go after a prison bus driver. They kill him, but he's with a colleague and they botched that. The colleague survives. Then when they escape and try to burn all the evidence, Garnier ends up burning his face. And also he shuts the door to their escape van while it's burning, which cuts off the oxygen. So the fire dies out. The evidence doesn't burn. They also get seen by a witness. And Garnier has to let one other person know what happened since he needs help with the cleanup.

Still, there's no arrest made for a while, but prison officials are clued into Ghana and start asking every single prisoner brought in, everyone sentenced to serve time, if he's the one who did it. I guess that would do it, right? Just ask prisoners if this is incredibly scary gangster did a murder, I'm sure. I'm sure somebody knows something and is willing to tell the authorities. Look, man, it's not the worst thing in the world, because if you're getting there and you got 10, 15, 20 years, you're trying to get out, which is...

I'm foreshadowing a bit, but yeah, like, uh, like it sounds silly, right? Of course, ask everyone who comes in there. They're going to tell you to go, go fuck yourself most of the time. But you know, people, uh, this is how a lot of these groups get brought down. Someone on the inside, someone knows something. These guys were very professional. They were very good at what they did, but we'll see what happens.

In December, police start cracking down hard. They're raiding bars, restaurants, strip clubs controlled by the biker gangs. They're doing buy and busts. There's one bus at a stripper agency. They find photos of the bikers having sex with strippers. And according to this book, with each other, which is something that does not get elaborated on further in the book. And it's literally just that line. And I just like I have questions, you know, though, like I said, we do know Kane was by. But also, like, how do you write that line in a book?

and not explain a little more. Maybe the comedians are just like, you know, I guess more open about this stuff than Americans, but like, not that there's anything wrong with that. But Sean, am I off base here for being a little intrigued? Well, I'm glad that you've asked my opinion. I don't know. Maybe they are bikers. I don't know. Very clever. Yeah. If you had to go and dig up that kind of shit, would you really go to a health center?

Hells Angel biker bar and be like, hey guys, was one of you involved in that big gay orgy back in the day? Like, who wants to tell me about that? I'm, I don't know. Maybe these, maybe these Canadian Hells Angels are like the most liberal guys on earth, but I

I'm going to guess that that is not going to go down well as a journalistic jumping point. Well, look, I mean, it's, it's, uh, I think one of the reasons it's surprising to hear that is because, you know, a lot of these groups are based on like, you know, my kismo kind of thing being a hardcore dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the cartels in, in Columbia, right? There's that famous cartel guy who was, uh,

who was gay. And then Toby Muse, who's been a frequent guest of our program, who I actually hung out with in Columbia and met a bunch of cartel guys and Sicario's and things like that. One of Toby's main, if you read his book, which is incredible, his book about the, God, what's the title of it? Now I'm blanking on the title, but- Kilo. Yeah, Kilo. It's the best book on cocaine that's ever been written, in my opinion.

He, one of his main contacts was a guy who was gay, who was like a party promoter. You know, the cartel guys loved him because he brought all the women to the parties. And then he also would date guys that were in the cartel. And I remember being very surprised by that, especially Latin American cartel, stuff like that. You don't expect that.

That sort of thing. But, you know, maybe we're going into this a little bit too much. Yeah. What they say, what they French say, like fraternity. So, yeah, they arrest a big amount of bikers in these raids. There are busts all over the city. One of these guys happens to be awaiting sentencing for drug trafficking. He gets busted with a bunch of kilos while he's awaiting sentencing. So he's looking at a stiff sentence, even in Canada.

And he just happens to be the only other guy who knew about the guard shooting detail since he was the guy Garnier had called for help getting rid of the evidence. He decides he's going to make a deal. He gives up Garnier, who in turn will later give up the Hells Angel leadership. And he testifies in a trial later on and gives up an incredible amount of information, including on Mon Boucher, who was then arrested outside of a hospital where he's getting cancer treatment. This is in late December 1997. Yeah, I mean, you went...

down deep with that biology thing and then you said something like awaiting a stiff sentence so I just I thought it was just like beyond me not to flag that I'm not going to say anything I'm not going to do anything but I'm just going to say that exists we're losing all these new listeners

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So then we have this, the massive trial that I detailed in previous episode. But what happens is Boucher somehow gets found not guilty. The police are inept. The prosecutors are outmatched by the high level defense attorneys. And he is now the hero of the Canadian underworld. His powering lore has grown more than ever. He gets a standing ovation at a boxing match the night of the not guilty verdict. And the police and prosecutors are all pissed at each other over various incompetent stuff that they've all done. Another thing to point out,

Boucher, during that time, had various members of the Hells Angels that could have been implicated or testified against him killed. So, you know, these guys are not just killing their enemies. They're killing people in their own organization. That's also when Danny Cain tells his police handlers, quote, Boucher is considered a god. The prison guard thing, there's nothing compared to what's coming.

Meanwhile, Kane's lover Samar, the 300 pound shooter, he gets 12 years for three murders and two attempted murders after he made his deal. His testimony though is so unreliable that he doesn't even help put any other bikers away and Kane himself ends up on trial for murder despite having been an informant.

But the prosecution's trial goes so wrong, he gets found not guilty. And he somehow gets welcomed back into the Hell's Angels fold because despite major suspicions that he was an informant, he beats a murder trial. And that eclipses the suspicions and he's basically welcomed back in. You got that? We caught up? Does everything make sense? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I want to know from people that are listening to the show, should we do a show about bad informants? Because there's loads have popped up in these episodes and there's one...

that the British used recently called steak knife so if you if you've heard that and you think that would make a good show let us know but yeah I'm on board I mean it sounds like the next stuff is gonna get pretty wild I would imagine but I think like one thing that I was wondering at this point was I get that Boucher is a master manipulator like narco and criminal mastermind all that kind of stuff but I

How are these guys so all in for him? Have I missed something? Maybe I've just answered my own question, to be fair. Does he take out the trash? Does he love his mum? Is he that kind of guy? Or does he just command this aura? I think it's an aura thing, man. Look, I never met him. I never interviewed him. But it just seems like he is...

incredibly smart at what he does he's he's ruthless he's obviously a great leader when it comes down to it yeah you know if you're talking about an illegal gang doing illegal things so he's talented at what he does he's powerful he does not take uh insubordination well i would assume but he's like any leader of any of these organizations you know why do you follow anyone there are obviously a lot of people who rise to the top of criminal organizations are you know violent

psychopathic, sociopathic even. And he just seems to like he was he was charming. He was smart. You know, he was also good at, you know, they would organize like toys for tots things and things like that. Like they knew he knew how to make plans. He took chances. He obviously knew how to expand, you know, like you're going to get if your goal is to be part of a powerful organization and to make a lot of money. And you've got some guy like this who clearly has a vision and knows how to do it.

not just intelligently, but violently, like you're going to get behind him, I think, you know? Yeah, yeah. Sociopathy. That's why I reach out to Edis every day. Yeah. So by the time he ends up going free, the previous four years of war between the Hells Angels and Rock Machine has seen 94 murders, 103 attempted murders, 85 explosions, and 142 firebombings. And this not guilty verdict, it's seen as a green light for biker gangs, especially the Hells Angels, all over Canada.

And they go to work, the Hells Angels. In Winnipeg, they take over. There's a bunch of shootings in no small part because the cops are having an easier time going after their rivals. Nova Scotia, the same. There's eight killings in Halifax, which is a super small area, including two women who are executed. In Ontario, the national president we talked about last time, Walter Stadnik, he's not really in this episode a lot. He ran the Angels like a sort of mafia CEO. He goes to war against the Outlaws, which are another big Canadian. I think they're an international one as well.

And in Vancouver, British Columbia, a major, major port and also a major, major weed base, you guys remember BC Bud, they beat out a gang of Russians for the cocaine trade. And I think that actually happened closer to the early 90s, but you get the idea. And the Hells Angels, they're just establishing their power nationally all over Canada. Yeah, is BC weed still a thing? I think we used to get it in London. I mean, I wouldn't know that world now, having...

had so much trauma that I've just pushed under the carpet psychologically. But, uh, is that still going around? Ah, dude, I have no idea, man. We used to get, uh, I mean, the big thing for us in, in probably the same time period was we used to get creepy up from, uh, from Miami. Like I had friends that would take it up on, uh, on trains, uh,

but um i don't even i mean everything's like in a store it's convenience stores now so i don't even know what's good or what's not what was the stuff from half baked and like everyone would lie and say that they their dealer g17 or like the government the government grown weed that was like the urban legend in like the late 90s g something i don't know is this the thing that made its way into a gta storyline i think i mean it might i don't i have no idea but it was a it was a it was a storyline in the movie half baked but it was also like a thing that everyone would be like

yeah he's got the the government grows it and he gets it it's g17 or i don't even remember dude just like dumb that's what they're doing dumb stuff so meanwhile

All that's happening. Boucher is doing his thing in Montreal as the angels are. Because remember, he's not the national president. He's the Quebec president. In the spring of 1999, bombs are found outside five police stations, but they don't go off because of faulty detonators. And there's rumors about them going after police, prosecutors, judges. It's sounding more like Juarez than Canada. And in 1997, Canada had passed some new anti-gang laws. They're a little stronger, but not as powerful as RICO statutes in the US. But they really hadn't used them that much.

These bombs, though, they unite all the police forces who had basically been beset by internal squabbling. Finally, the prosecutors who had been overloaded and underpaid and under-resourced, they finally start getting what they need. And somewhat insane, Kane agrees to go back undercover as an informant in 1999. He's hoping for like a million dollar payout. And somehow through all of this, the war with the alliance is still going on.

The police actually managed to get inside the rockers meetings. If you remember, they were the big Hells Angels affiliate club or farm team, however you want to call it. This is all detailed in the road to hell, the book. And it's like the descriptions are kind of funny, right? It's like tame stuff filled with these everyday banalities, bikers complaining about psoriasis,

tax problems, alimony, hair transplants. They argue over like a big bill for sandwiches and they wonder whether the hotel is cheating them. One biker has problems with child protection services. Some of the men are complaining about having to work on weekends when they would rather be with their families. Others are complaining that they actually hate driving their motorcycles now, like they're over it. The older bikers are complaining about being passed over promotions for younger bikers. Another biker actually quits because he doesn't like the violence.

Quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote

That's awesome. I feel like this whole thing is like a David Mamet play. But yeah, are any of these guys just like middle-aged dads having a crisis, want to wear cool clothes and ride hogs? Like there must be some guys joining up the Hells Angels who don't.

fully know what it is can you ever do that can you just like i mean join up thinking you're gonna do like the club softball thing on the weekend or something i don't think i think at that point if you're involved it's a hell's angels first of all you know it's not like a random club and if you're involved with them in canada during this time like you're kind of aware of what it what it's about you know what i'm saying i mean they still could be middle-aged dads but like if you're involved with the hell's angels in quebec in the 90s like you know what it is you know

Which is why that part is kind of ridiculous. But the Angels, meanwhile, they steal a police laptop from an officer's hotel room that holds a lot of sensitive info. This causes a bunch of the ops to take them out to be scrapped. And, you know, the Canadian police have been working on this huge case involving Danny Kane and all this. Tons of surveillance and all that, but they keep having to push it back. Things keep going wrong. It's like very Keystone Cop situation.

Kane at this point fears for his life. We're in March of 2000 and he's finally getting ready because they're going to go on it to testify. The police are going to pay him close to $1.5 million. The whole thing is like really, really weird. I don't think I've ever heard of informants getting that much. They actually, like I said, they let him get away with a lot. They routinely just don't act on his info. I know they were trying to build a major case, but it just, the whole thing, he's a big part of the book and the whole thing is very strange.

Meanwhile, Boucher and the Nomads, they're at the height of their power. He's plotting with the Rizzutos, who are the Montreal Sicilian mob who control everything. And we did an episode on them, on the Rizzuto family, probably about 30 or 40 episodes back if you guys want to learn more about them. Incredibly powerful family. They're working together on drug trafficking, loan sharking, and a big telemarketing scam. Julian Scherer and William Martin, the authors of the book, they call the Nomads at this point a warrior cult.

They were buying off government employees. They had Intel ops. They were looking into journalists and to rivals, police officers. They employed former cops. They're gathering this data on prison guards. The whole thing is nuts. Yeah, that's insane. And I think like, cause we've got some listeners down under in Australia, New Zealand, like this is not the same nomads as you get down this part of the world. Like these are just another motorcycle gang in this part of the world. But like you mentioned, these are,

They're kind of like offcuts almost. They've come together as like... They've fallen out of other motorcycle clubs, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The nomads... The way it's described in the book for at least the Hells Angels are the nomads or nomads and motorcycle gangs in general are like a faction of the club, but they're allowed to operate outside their own territory. So they haven't fallen out with the other angels. They're like the heavy hitters of the Hells Angels who Boucher brings together...

to form this new club of just like all in guys. I think each of them has to have committed a murder at least to get in or already have done so for it. So they're like the ones who are the top dogs in trafficking, the, the, the real shooters and stuff like that. So they're like a, like an all-star team almost, I would say, you know? Yeah. The Imperial guard. That's my understanding. You know, like I said, I haven't done too much work on motorcycle clubs, so I definitely could have gotten that a little wrong. And,

In which case, I'm sure people will yell at me and I'll let you guys know in the next episode. They're doing stuff. They're filming license plates of cops, personal cars coming in and out of offices. Boucher would go to the coffee shop outside of the courts where the cops always sit. He'd go there with his men and just sit in their seats where the cops used to sit. Over and over he would do that. And by the spring of 2000, I mean the war's still going on, but they pretty much won the war against the rock machine. Though, like I said, it was ongoing.

Now, one thing also to know, Boucher and the Hells Angels, they'd always bought their coke from the Italian mob who had the contacts in South America. But Boucher was getting tired of that. He wanted to remove them from the structure and get it from the plug direct. In the late 90s, they actually start organizing shipments from Columbia themselves. At the end of 1998, I think they do like a 2,400 kilo shipment, which is massive. Jesus Christ.

They would wholesale it to other angels and other criminal groups. And they're also trying to set fixed prices, sort of like having price control, like an actual cartel, you know? And they convince Vito Rizzuto, the other major player in the coke importing, to do it with them. So the Hells Angels and the Italian mob divide up the territory in the summer of 2000, and they set the price of a kilo at 50k, which is...

Kind of high, I guess. You know, Jeezy said he was paying LeBron and Hove said he was paying Dwayne Wade and that's like 24K and 23K. But, you know, American dollars and also rappers. Rappers lie a lot. Yeah, I got LeBron there and he's a basketball player, right? So that's about as much as I got. Yeah, I mean, that's enough. The telemarketing scam they split

It's bringing in $1 million a week. And the book claims 250 keys a week. I think it's either a week or a month. I think it's a week are going through Montreal, which is $12.5 million in revenue, about half of which is profit.

So the Angels, they're about money then, and some don't even ride bikes. But this deal is made to avoid a war. The Hells Angels, they're still finishing off Rock Machine. And the Rizzutos, they're not slouches. They are very powerful. Some used to call them the sixth family. They would have been a much tougher fight for the Angels. Apparently, Ghani actually would later testify that Boucher had talked about wiping them out after they finished off Rock Machine. But for now, they're just too strong to start a second war, so it's better to work in tandem with them.

The Hells Angels, though, they start killing off the other coke importers that they had done business with since they wanted to be the sole other option in importation besides the prosciutto. This is importation, remember, not distribution, which they had already fought the rock machine over to monopolize. In six months in 2000, 11 associates of the Hells Angels, this is people they had done business with for involving coke trafficking, were killed or went missing.

So what's going on with the Rock Machine and the Alliance in these years when Boucher is growing ever more powerful? In 1997, the police actually go after them hard, some say as a way of trying to end their biker war chaos by knocking out the smaller, weaker party and basically finishing the job for the Hells Angels. First, a whole bunch of them get arrested for an attempt to kill Boucher years before, and then a bunch of Rock Machine clubhouses get raided where the police seize a whole lot of drugs and over 700 pounds of explosives.

Right before that, one of the new leaders of the rock machine had blown up a Hells Angels clubhouse in Quebec City. Here's the economist on that. Quote, in March 1997, police say Fred Foshay had packed the truck with more than 100 pounds of dynamite and crashed it through the gates of the Hells Angel clubhouse in Quebec City, barely escaping before the remote control mechanism went off.

The explosion rocked the residential neighborhood, tossing people from their beds, knocking doors off their hinges, and blowing the windows out of 22 buildings. Nine days later, 2,000 citizens marched on City Hall to demand better police protection. The economists there covering Canadian biker wars, that's pretty out there for them. Dude, they make it happen, you know? That same guy, this guy Fred...

He had actually tried to go to Sweden during that time to rendezvous with the Bandidos motorcycle club. The Bandidos, I think they're the second or third biggest after the Hells Angels internationally at this point. And they're involved in their own biker war in Scandinavia versus the Hells Angels. It's called the Great Nordic Biker War, which I think we'll eventually do an episode on.

Oh yeah, I feel like this one's been threatened since the pandemic. We definitely got to do that. And the Bandidos are huge here as well. They're one of the most notorious gangs. They're holding their own in that war. And the leadership of Rock Machine thinks the only way they can stand a chance in the Quebec biker war is if they join the Bandidos by patching over. But they get kicked out of Sweden before they can make it happen. We'll get more on that in a minute.

There's also a wild assassination attempt of a Hell's Angel while the angel is locked up. I think rock machine shooters try to get him from beyond a prison wall. Maybe there was a sniper rifle involved. Canadians love doing that stuff in Montreal in terms of organization.

organized crime. When the police start looking into it, that's when the dark circle are sort of brought into the light because the police investigation reveals who they are. These are the business owners that were involved in the trafficking and money laundering that had joined the alliance and helped fund the rock machine war against the Hells Angels. Once their existence gets exposed, the Hells Angels start offering big rewards for any of their identities. Then in like 98, 99, one of the dark circle members switches sides and gives the Hells Angels tons of info, including the identities of the dark circle members.

And that's the beginning of the end for them. They just start getting, you know, picked off one by one. The alliance starts breaking apart. A bunch of dark circle members, as I mentioned, they actually turn themselves into the police and confess to some crimes. They're so fearful of the hell's angels killing them that they think they'd be better off in prison.

Eventually, Rock Machine in 1999 becomes a hang around club for the banditos than a probationary club in 2000. And the war just keeps going. Here's a sampling of incidents as written up by the Montreal Gazette, I believe. This isn't from 2000.

February 4th, reportedly a police informant trying to infiltrate the Hells Angels is found dead. April 17th, Hells Angels is shot dead. April 23rd, Hells Angels sympathizers ride in a holding jail in Montreal and try to storm a wing reserved for the Rock Machine. April 27th, former union boss is killed the day after meeting his friend, Hells Angels chieftain Maurice Mambuche. May 1st, Rock Machine Associates shot dead at the Montreal street corner, at a Montreal street corner.

May 6th, in a protection racket move, three Hells Angels underlings pepper spray clients in a Quebec City tavern. May 9th, police arrest two Hells Angels affiliates in a stolen van with two pistols, a can of gasoline, and hoods. Later that day, an in-law of a rock machine member is found dead inside a burning car. May 12th, two rock machine supporters are wounded in a machine gunning at a stoplight in Montreal. May 24th, rival bikers scuffle on the bus, taking them from jail to a courthouse appearance. So...

Yeah, I mean, it's just like nonstop. Is there anything else we need to clear up? Are we making sense? I think we're good. Actually, I was just thinking like, what's a probationary club? Like what's going on there? I think it's like one step up from hangarounds, you know, like essentially being a prop, like with a person, right? You're hanging around and you're prospect. So it's like one level up. It's a level before full patch.

In August 2000, Danny Kane, the star informant for police that we've talked about, he kills himself and the police lose their key witness for the big takedown of the Hells Angels. They've been planning for years, but they still think they have enough. But this is a huge loss, you know. Then in September, the Hells Angels go too far. That's when they try to kill. I guess they've gone too far a lot, but this one has reverberations. This one, though. This one. Yeah, that's when they try to kill the reporter in the newspaper parking lot from the cold open.

He survives, huge public outcry. It's all over the media, huge protests, politicians putting on pressure, and some of the big players in Canadian crime start getting pretty worried the government is about to pass some additional RICO-strength organized crime laws.

So the Montreal mob, led by Vito Rizzuto, starts putting some pressure on the Hells Angels and Mambuche to have a public ceasefire declaration with Rock Machine and their leader. And to do so, they set it up with a photographer and all this, I think from some, like a crime publication or tabloid called Alo Police. They have this big thing and they go to Club Supersex.

A very well-known strip club in Montreal that I actually had been to when I was like 18 or 19. More information? Interesting business. But it was a legendary strip club in Montreal at that time. So yeah, they go there, they celebrate, public ceasefire, big deal. But three weeks later, a bunch of Hells Angels affiliates...

beat to death a bar owner in broad daylight because he wouldn't let them sell drugs in the bar. And then we get another huge public outcry. Neighborhoods at this point are rising up, protesting the Hells Angels where the clubhouses are. It's reaching a fever pitch. Yeah, I mean, you could say they're not poutine up with it. Awful.

Awful. You just lost us another thousand listeners. Right around then, a court had decided that Boucher could be tried again for the prison guard murders because the judge was incredibly bad. They go into a lot of detail in the book, but basically the judge messed up a lot. He's arrested shortly after the truce. He gets locked up again.

The ceasefire calms things down for like a minute, but not too long. The Hells Angels, they're winning, but they don't want to piss off the Rizzutos. They also figure it's a way to slow down the Bandidos from moving into Montreal and Quebec because if you remember, they're in the process of patching over the rock machine in Quebec.

Also, the Hells Angels are going to use that ceasefire time to divide Rock Machine. They end up recruiting the guys who don't agree with the patch over to join the Hells Angels, effectively kind of splitting them. You know, it's a big thing. Even the full patch members of Rock Machine would have had to been prospects in the Bandidos at first. And the Hells Angels apparently said, we'll make you full patch members if you sign over.

Meanwhile, the police have gotten access to a Hells Angels bank and that's just like an apartment or two where they like a safe house where they store all their money and counted and disperse it and all that sort of thing.

They get this access secretly. They do surveillance. They're seeing $24 to $36 million in cash passing through every month. Additionally, one of those independent coke importers who the Angels were knocking off as they were trying to corner the market in importation, it's a Bolivian woman who was the daughter of a Bolivian drug lord. I believe the Hells Angels killed her husband and tried to kill her, but she survived. She approached the police with an offer to give information.

So in January of 2001, the police move on the bank and they're still working. They're gathering data. They're getting DNA, doing surveillance, using all of Danny Kane's info. On March 28th, finally, it's the big takedown day. 2,000 cops arrest 142 bikers across multiple provinces. I feel like this is similar to what you said with the Rizzo as being so massive, right? I feel...

I feel like it's flown under the radar somewhat that these guys are trying to cut out the cartels and go straight to the source of cocaine in Latin America. They're so big, and they're causing so much havoc. This is a huge story, right? This is absolutely gigantic. I wouldn't say they're trying to cut out the cartels, even though that woman apparently was the daughter of a Bolivian drug lord. They're trying to essentially be the main partners for the cartels.

They're out there in Colombia and Venezuela and Mexico trying to partner up with them to have it at that level where no one else is bringing it in across the border because you're getting it at a better price then. It's still huge level. No, it's massive. It's massive. I talked about this before. People assume biker gangs are like greasy beards and long hair and...

putting up gophers, putting meth in backpacks, like slobs, basically. These guys are not that. They are, for all intents and purposes, basically behaving like a well-oiled mafia. They are organized. They are incredibly smart and intelligent. Boucher is wearing suits and getting driven to work in the back of a bulletproof suburban and things like that. He lives in a giant house. They're not slackers. They're not crazy in a way where they're not good at what they do. We're talking about

They're probably moving like close to a billion dollars worth of money. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but definitely hundreds of millions of dollars. They are a well-oiled machine and they're very good at what they do. And I think they've only grown since then. And nonetheless, Sons of Anarchy is not a good TV show. So don't watch that.

I like that guy. What's his name? The main guy? He's a good actor. Yeah, he's good, man. Come on. He's alright. I don't like his Geordie accent, but okay.

Wait, he actually is. That's the weirdest thing ever. He is a Geordie. He has a bad Geordie accent in movies. Buddy, I don't know what that means. You got to, but it's good. We need our British audiences growing. Let's do Don Cheadle, Ocean's Eleven. You know that one? It's like that, but imagine Don Cheadle is actually from London and that's that bad. His accent in Ocean's Eleven is great, man. Great character. Oh my God. Anyway.

Massive trials happen with the bikers. Boucher has a separate second trial. The murder one for the prison guards. Again, this is 2002. April, the biker won't start. Boucher is found guilty in May. He still apparently ran things from prison for a while, though he was attacked a few times, allegedly by native gangs. That's what we in the U.S. call Native Americans. Canada, they're just called natives. And there are some really powerful native gangs there, especially in the prisons, including one called the Indian Posse I want to do an episode on.

Yeah, I think I've been looking into that recently as well. Stuff going on in Montana with Native Americans, First Nations. I don't know what the phrase is in use now. First Nations, I think...

yeah is that in canada or is that i think canada i think i think canada is the first nations thing as well but you know they they have gangs in the in the u.s too but it's not like in canada they're like immensely powerful you know yeah i mean i used to live in oklahoma and they're like some of the gangs that were affiliated with the native american tribes down there on the texas border are like full on there's like a lot of money going on there and uh

If you don't believe me and if you don't live down there, look up the Windstar Casino and then look up a few other words after that on Google and see what's going on. Interesting. Interesting. But yeah, at this time, the war is basically over. All in all, I think, I mean, I couldn't find evidence of anything more, but it's supposed to be the deadliest recorded biker conflict in history with over 162 dead, 300 wounded, I think more missing, you know, hundreds of arson attacks, explosions, attempted murders. Just insanity.

The Hells Angels, they basically end up winning and then growing even more powerful right now. I think in Canada, they're still massive. The Bandidos slash Rock Machine basically gets stamped out in Canada. Here's the Montreal Gazette quote.

On June 5th, 2002, charges were filed against 62 people tied to the Bandidos, resulting in a roundup of the gang's entire membership in Montreal. The arrest put an end to the war because for the first time since 1994, one entire side of the conflict was behind bars. I think the Bandidos actually get rounded up too in Ontario, as did the Outlaws and the Hells Angels basically take over Ontario for the most part. By the spring of 2002, Hells Angels

Hells Angels have 600 full patch members and 37 chapters across the country of Canada, according to the book. They also claim one in four Hells Angels live in Canada at that time, which is 2004. They're more powerful in Canada than they are in any other country. But I think that reflects the lack of competition, I guess you could say. And they're the first Canadian organized crime group to go fully national. Boucher would end up being attacked a bunch in prison. He dies in 2022.

The scariest man to ever be nicknamed mom. Yeah, I don't know. You weren't at that orgy that we mentioned earlier. As for the other rock machine and their former leader who don't, we don't talk about that much and founder in this episode, Salvatore, Salvatore Cosetta. This is a wild one. He didn't get a prison until after Mambooshe was locked up for life and the biker was over and rock machine that ended up patching over the banditos. What?

Like we mentioned before, another international biker gang. He doesn't like that. He actually moves over to join the Hells Angels because he didn't like Rock Machine patching over the Banditos. If you remember, he started Rock Machine because he didn't like the Hells Angels. And he even ends up leading the Hells Angels in Quebec in 2011, which is just, yeah, absolutely sort of insane 180.

The Rock Machine, that iteration basically ends in early 2000s, right when it patches over. But a second iteration is founded in 2008, and it's already expanded like crazy onto five continents. So it exists. It's global now, Rock Machine.

You know, nowadays I need to, I haven't done a ton of research into it, but I know the Hells Angels are still completely dominant and organized crime in Canada. One of the most, if not the most powerful group there. I'm sure we could do another two or three episodes on what they've been up to since the end of the Quebec biker war. Yeah. I mean, pretty, pretty crazy stuff overall. So thank you guys for, uh, for tuning in.

Yeah, I guess we're going to be doing this till we're like a pension age. So I guess we could do another like six or seven episodes on the Hells Angels. But I guess something that I don't understand, I don't know if you have the answer, but like, are these banditos, are they directly connected to the banditos that are bringing in like meth from the Golden Triangle to Australia and stuff like that? Or are they just really loosely connected?

I don't know. I mean, I would assume they're part of the same organization because it's a massive international organization, you know? Yeah. I don't know how much directly...

directly, you know, even Hells Angels, I don't know how much directly they're involved. Like, like say a club in who knows, Montana, Canada would be involved with one of the clubs in Sweden. I'm sure if you go to there on vacation or you're going to hang out there, it happens. I'm sure they do deals together. I don't know how it actually works in terms of, you know, processes and things like that. Or as Canadians would say processes, I think, right? That's how they say it. Yeah. It's an interesting question. How, you know, it sounded like a question we've dealt with, with MS-13, right? Cause I've done all that work on them in El Salvador.

But there was always questions about how much the organization was involved with the offshoots that were in Virginia or Long Island. Were they working actively together? Was it just kind of like a separate affiliate claiming name? That's the thing with street gangs all over. How much international organization, how top-down is it exactly? And I don't have the answer, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. It's if you do email us the underworld podcast at gmail.com and, uh, yeah, until, until next week. Thanks for, for tuning in, follow us, support us, patrion.com slash, you know, a podcast and, uh, and all that stuff. Yeah.

so