Hells Angels MC brought brother to last rest

Överkalix, Sweden (March 22, 2019) BTN — Several hundred members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club had chosen to attend when a full member was buried. Kent Nilsson recently died after a long-term illness. At the time of his death, the 65-year-old had many years behind Hells Angels. When Kent Nilsson was taken to the last rest on Friday, a large number of Hells Angels members from all over Europe chose to attend the funeral in central Överkalix.

Just over an hour before the funeral service began in the church, Hells Angels members began to gather. Cars filled the parking spaces in the small community while men, dressed in vests with the infamous emblem, stepped off buses and transported them from Luleå. Jörgen Eriksson, president of Hells Angels department in Luleå, and the full member Miika Silvennoinen received those who chose to attend the funeral outside the church. The large number of people who applied for Överkalix came from the 15th century fully-fledged departments located in Sweden.

Alongside them, men from Norway, Finland, Denmark and several other countries in Europe traveled all the way to Norrbotten. A man carried an emblem on his vest which showed that he was the president of the Costa del Sol in Spain. Another represented the organization in Austria. In addition to the large number of full members, there were also minions in the form of members of the clubs' Red and White crew departments in place.

A large number of men from support clubs like Red Devils MC also participated in the funeral in Överkalix. According to one source, the police management chose to keep the guard in Överkalix. To Norrbottens Media says Lars Öberg, Local Police Area Manager in East Norrbotten: - We know it is a funeral of a full Hells Angels member today, and we have a certain guard.

So much can I say. I don't want to say much more. The funeral service took just over an hour before the coffin with Kent Nilsson was carried out to the burial of Jörgen Eriksson.

SOURCE: NSD

MC partially blamed for skyrocketing real estate

Ontario, Canada (March 22, 2019) BTN —  A new report by an international anti-corruption organization is taking aim at Canadian real estate, showing the ways that illegitimate funds can and are entering the economy, and driving home prices up in cities across the country, including Toronto.

“Domestic criminals have known for decades that Canada is ‘la la land’ for financial crime, but word has spread internationally too,” says the publication from Transparency International Canada (TIC). “Canadian real estate has attracted the attention and money of corrupt government officials and organized crime syndicates from across the globe.”

According to the watchdog, they began focusing on Canadian real estate markets in 2016 after it Canada was revealed to be an alleged haven money laundering in the “Panama Papers,” a trove of confidential financial documents leaked to the press in 2015.

Investing and hiding money in Canada’s real estate market, according to the report, is called “snow washing.”

The real problem, says TIC, is that of transparency, or rather opacity — so much so it’s actually the name of the report. Ontario’s current laws allow private corporations to purchase property without revealing the names of its directors, as well as often times, the source of the money.

The report’s “central case study” involved an analysis of 1.4 million GTA home sales and 1.3 million mortgages, dating back to 2008. In doing so they “identified billions of dollars in property acquired by anonymous owners with money of unknown origin.”

Much of the report deals in the abstract. Outlining the various loopholes in policy that could allow for criminal elements to take advantage of Ontario and Canada’s laws around purchasing real estate. It does not, however, hold back in citing examples of those who have been caught in the act using a corporate cover for their own dirty money.

According to the report, CLJ Everest Ltd is an Ontario company that was used to acquire a sprawling rural estate in Burlington for “disgraced fund manager and alleged fraudster” Clayton Smith, who used it to misappropriate at least $5 million in investor funds for personal use.

Omid Mashinchi, a former realtor and convicted money launderer in the US, used Mashinchi Investments Ltd, a BC-registered company, to acquire residential properties in Vancouver and Toronto, some of which were then leased to criminal associates, according to the report.

 Outlaws Motorcycle Club Property 

Another example includes an Etobicoke residential property, bought by 953667 Ontario Ltd. that would go onto serve as the Toronto clubhouse of the Outlaws motorcycle club. The report says, “court documents show that the club held several residential properties through numbered Ontario companies, which it used to further its criminal operations.”

Obscured corporate buyers, both legitimate and otherwise, have acquired $28.4 billion in GTA housing since 2008. “The vast majority of those companies are privately owned, with no information on their beneficial owners,” says the TIC.

These companies are also increasingly relying on cash purchases, the rate of which has been rising steadily over the past 10 years.

The report says cash transactions accounted for nearly half of corporate purchases in 2018. In fact, in the GTA alone $9.8 billion in housing was acquired by companies using cash purchases. TIC says much of these were able to bypass safeguards that track information on the source of the funds and its owners.

SOURCE:  Daily Hive

Hells Angels member on trial for attempted murder

Milliken, Colorado (March 22, 2019) BTN —  The attorney for a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club argued on Thursday his client did not intend to kill a Milliken police officer when he fired on her during a high-speed chase in the summer of 2017.

Colorado Public Defender Brian Connors represents John Lockhart, 38, of Eaton, who is accused of two counts of attempted first-degree murder, among others. The charges stem from separate shootings during the early morning hours of June 11, 2017, in Greeley and Milliken.

On Thursday, a Weld County jury heard closing arguments in Lockhart’s case, during which Connors argued for a conviction on a lesser charge of attempted manslaughter, saying it was impossible for Lockhart to shoot to kill Milliken officer Katherine Lines in the midst of a high-speed chase.

Lines encountered Lockhart and his passenger, Amber Eaton, about 1:30 a.m. June 11, 2017, as they sped into Milliken on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. When Lines attempted to pull Lockhart over, he accelerated to speeds exceeding 100 mph and fired three shots at her cruiser. One of those bullets entered the cruiser near the driver’s side headlight. Lines was uninjured.

“Mr. Lockhart was controlling the bike with one hand, shooting with his left hand around a passenger, while also going over 100 mph,” Connors said. “What kind of aim, what kind of accuracy, what kind of intent can you have?

“There is plenty of evidence Mr. Lockhart fired a gun that night, but no evidence he intended to kill officer Lines.”

Connors explained to the jury the difference between an attempted first-degree murder conviction and an attempted manslaughter one comes down to whether or not Lockhart acted with intent or acted recklessly when he squeezed off three rounds in Lions’ direction. “Mr. Lockhart’s actions in Milliken are the very portrait of what it means to act recklessly,” Connors said. “The only way he could have acted more recklessly is if he was blindfolded.”

Weld Chief Deputy District Attorney Tony Perea painted a simpler picture of the events during his closing argument, saying Lockhart could only have had one intention in mind when he pointed a gun at another person and pulled the trigger. In officer Lines’ case, Perea cited a couple pieces of damning evidence against Lockhart that was brought up at trial.

The first was a portion of Lockhart’s taped interview with police following his arrest in June 2017. During the interview, Lockhart tells a Greeley police investigator he believes driving is a right, not a privilege, and that he doesn’t believe in pulling over for anyone.

The second piece of evidence came from a recorded telephone conversation to a friend Lockhart made from the Weld County Jail about a month after his arrest. “I did shoot at that (expletive),” Lockhart says in a snippet of the conversation played during Thursday’s hearing. “Her dash cam is gonna show that she tried to hit me, twice.”

Perea noted Lockhart made the decision to not only run from Lions after she activated her emergency lights, but to also shoot at her during the chase. “He (Connors) wants to argue that shooting at a police officer is reckless,” Perea said. “Does, ‘I did shoot at that (expletive)’ sound reckless? Shooting three times at a police officer is not the definition of reckless.”

Prior to the incident in Milliken, Lockhart was involved in a shooting with Faustino Garcia while driving on 8th Avenue through Greeley. That shooting occurred about 12:30 a.m. June 11, 2017, about an hour before Lockhart’s chase with Milliken police.

Lockhart is accused of firing seven times at Garcia, who was driving a Ford SUV. Garcia admitted at trial he had been drinking at the White Horse Bar in Garden City and that the shooting was the result of a road rage incident.

The jury began its deliberations shortly after 10 a.m. A verdict has not yet been announced.

SOURCE: GreeleyTribune

Thousands attend funeral for Taco Bowman

Dayton, Ohio, USA (March 17, 2019) BTN — Former Outlaws Motorcycle Club leader Harry ‘Taco’ Bowman’s was laid to rest at Bear Creek Cemetery Saturday. About a thousand members of the club came into town to honor their one-time leader. The ceremonies started at the Montgomery County Fair Grounds with a 24 hour viewing on Friday followed by a funeral service and burial Saturday morning. “There were thousands of people here today. We had a thousand on motorcycles, we had cars everywhere,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck.

The ride from the Fair Grounds to the cemetery proved to be a difficult task for law enforcement. Streck said deputies from his office, Trotwood Police officers, and troopers from Ohio State Highway Patrol made it as smooth as they could.

Related | Harry "Taco" Bowman funeral set for fairgrounds
Related | Outlaws MC: Harry "Taco" Bowman dead at 69

He apologized for the inconvenience it posed to other drivers, though. “At one point west third street from the 49 connector was at a standstill because there were so many vehicles trying to turn onto union to get to the cemetery,” he said. Bowman was the club’s international president in the 1990’s and died in federal prison from cancer.

He at one point was on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. According to FBI reports, Bowman was convicted on multiple murder charges, including ones stemming from contracted bombings on rival clubs.

The Outlaws are a 1-percenter motorcycle club. That means they separate themselves from the American Motorcyclist Association's statement that 99-percent of all motorcyclists are law abiding. Despite the club’s reputation, Funeral Director Kevin Rogers said they were respectable. “We've actually done about four other Outlaw funerals,” Rogers said. “Every time I've ever worked with them they've been nothing but great.” Bowman is from Michigan and died in North Carolina.

He chose Dayton as his final resting place. “The answer they gave me as to why they chose Dayton is because Bear Creek Cemetery is where a lot of his outlaw brothers were already buried,” said Rogers.