Club member found dead

Detroit, Michigan, USA (May 21, 2019) BTN — Police are investigating a man's death at a motorcycle club Tuesday morning on Detroit's west side.

Detroit Gentlemen Motorcycle Clubhouse 

It was about 10:50 a.m. when the victim, described as "older," was found dead inside Detroit Gentlemen Motorcycle Club on the 14800 block of Grand River, said Latrice Crawford, a Detroit Police Department spokeswoman.


The victim was found with a gunshot wound, lying dead in a pool of blood. A motorcycle believed to have belonged to the victim was found on fire, parked behind the club.

SOURCE: The Detroit News

Hells Angels MC members arrested

Lisbon, Portugal (May 21, 2019) BTN - Portuguese police arrested 17 members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club on Tuesday on suspicion of organised crime activity, authorities said.

Around 150 officers, including anti-terrorism personnel, took part in raids on homes and commercial establishments across Portugal, the Judiciary Police (PJ) said in a statement.

TV channel SIC reported homes were searched in the capital Lisbon, the country’s north and the Algarve in the south where thousands of bikers gather every year for an international motorcycle event.

Police confirmed 17 men belonging to the Hells Angels and aged between 29 and 52 were detained and expected to appear in court on Wednesday, charged with criminal association - which in Portugal is punishable by up to five years in jail.

One police inquiry has focused on a March 2018 incident in which Hells Angels members allegedly attacked a rival motorcycle club and neo-Nazi associates as part of a turf war for control of illicit weapons and drug trafficking.

Dozens of Hells Angels motorcycle club members were arrested four months later and described by Portuguese police as “extremely dangerous” with long criminal records and involvement in violent organised crime.

SOURCE: New Straits Times

Bandidos MC member admits threatening informant

San Antonio, Texas, USA (May 10, 2019) BTN — A member of the Bandidos motorcycle club pleaded guilty Thursday to retaliating against an informant after he threatened to kill a witness who helped the feds convict the motorcycle club’s top two leaders. Albert DeLeon, 45, made the threat on Feb. 22 against the witness, whose name hasn’t been released, at a local H-E-B store.

“He was a personal friend of the witness and felt horribly betrayed, and let off some steam when he confronted him at the grocery store,” DeLeon’s lawyer, Jesse Rivera, said in an interview.

Several informants — most of them former members of the club from San Antonio who got reduced sentences for their crimes — testified last year at the three-month trial of then-national president Jeffrey Fay Pike of Conroe and ex-national vice president John Xavier Portillo of San Antonio.

The organization’s leaders were sentenced to life in federal prison in September after being found guilty of crimes that included racketeering conspiracy, murder, extortion and drug dealing. The trial gave a vivid look inside the Bandidos’ secretive operations.

It also delineated attacks the Bandidos plotted or carried out on rival bikers as the club flexed its muscle to protect what it considered its home turf — the state of Texas. The trial also shed light on internal bickering that resulted in a split of the Bandidos in North America with its numerous chapters in Europe and Asia. Government witnesses testified that the leading dissidents were violently ousted on orders from Pike.

DeLeon’s plea agreement said DeLeon made eye contact with the witness inside a local HEB.

DeLeon called another Bandidos member to the scene. Together, they approached the witness outside the store as he was in his car, and DeLeon mouthed off, according to court records. The statements included: “Get out, you’re going to die today,” “You’re a (expletive) snitch, we saw you on the news,” “It’s your fault everyone in the club went down,” I”m going to (expletive) kill you,” and “Jeff and John went down because of you.”

DeLeon also pulled a handgun from his waistband and “cocked it” to put a round in the chamber, but put the weapon away when other shoppers looked toward them, the plea deal said. The witness quickly left the scene.

DeLeon faces up to 20 years in prison, without parole, when Biery sentences him in August.

SOURCE: My San Antonio

Former Hells Angels MC president goes to court

Manitoba, Canada (April 30, 2019) BTN — The former president of the Manitoba Hells Angels is taking the Correctional Service of Canada to court for allegedly infringing on his "right to life, liberty and security of person" when it reclassified his security threat level and moved him from a minimum-security unit to medium.

Dale Jason Sweeney, 48, is currently serving the remainder of a 10-year prison sentence at Stony Mountain Institution for his role in a cocaine trafficking ring. He was arrested in March 2012 as part of a Winnipeg police investigation dubbed Project Flatlined and later pleaded guilty to instructing someone to commit an offence for a criminal organization and possession of property obtained by crime.

Manitoba Justice seized hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and cash from Sweeney's Autumnview Drive home, including a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Police raided Sweeney's Autumnview Drive home in 2012 and seized a number of items, including a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Sweeney was sentenced to 10-years in prison for instructing someone to commit an offence for a criminal organization and possession of property obtained by crime.

In a March 2019 affidavit filed in the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench, Sweeney said in the summer of 2015, while serving his sentence at Stony Mountain, the correctional service assessed him to be a minimum security risk and he was moved to a minimum-security unit of the prison.

Sweeney said he participated in offender programming and has had "no serious disciplinary offences of any kind." Despite that, in August 2018 his security threat level was increased and he was sent back to a medium security unit.

Police raided Sweeney's Autumnview Drive home in 2012 and seized a number of items, including a Harley Davidson motorcycle. 

Sweeney was denied parole in 2017.

His lawyer says he is up for parole again in June. "This is the second time that this has occurred with Mr. Sweeney," said Sweeney's lawyer, StephanThliveris.

In 2017, a few months before Sweeney was to appear before the Parole Board of Canada, his security level was increased from minimum to medium and as a result, his parole was denied, said Thliveris. Sweeney will be up for parole again in a few months, and Thliveris alleges his client's security level was increased in an effort to thwart his application.

Allegations 'completely fabricated': lawyer 

"Every time his parole comes up, all of a sudden there's these security intelligence officer reports that allege all these shenanigans, for lack of a better phrase, and they increase the security classification," said Thliveris.

Thliveris said there is no substance to the allegations, which he said include accusations of drug trafficking. He said if the correctional service had any evidence against Sweeney, his client would have been charged under the Criminal Code, or at the very least would have faced institutional charges.

"It's our position that these are completely fabricated charges, which is done in a deliberate attempt to get as much time out of him, to make him serve as much time as possible, and really just trump any sort of chance he has before the parole board," said Thliveris.

In 2017, Sweeney filed what's called a writ of habeas corpus application to fight his security level reclassification. His lawyer said when the matter appeared before a judge, the Attorney General of Canada conceded its case and signed a consent order.

Within 72 hours, his client was back in a minimum-security unit where he remained until he was moved to a medium-security unit last August, said Thliveris.

"I've been doing work with inmates for the better part of a decade now, I've never quite seen anything as egregious as this. They're really doing everything they can to hamper his ability to have a proper parole hearing and be able to present his position properly," said Thliveris.

'People get killed all the time' In January, Sweeney filed another writ of habeas corpus application.

The writ of habeas corpus is very serious, said Thlivaris. The deprivation of liberty is the moste severe punishment in Canadian society, which doesn't have the death penalty, so placing someone in an unnecessarily high security classification is "a major no no," he said.

There is a vast difference between life in a minimum-security unit versus medium security, he said. In minimum, inmates have an abundance of freedom and are able to move around the unit with ease. There is no wall or fence forcing offenders to stay to a certain area. They are even allowed to cook their own meals.

In medium security, life is a lot more dangerous and the environment is more restrictive, said Thliveris.

"You'll go to lockdown and people get killed all the time in medium security. This is often not reported in the papers, because they don't want people knowing about it," said Thliveris.

Sweeney still a Hells Angel 

This is not the first time Sweeney has served time in prison. He was convicted of discharging a firearm with intent after a brazen 2001 daylight shootout with a rival gang member on Portage Avenue. He's also been convicted of assault, break and enter and commit mischief, attempt to obstruct justice and attempting fraud under $5,000.

According to parole board documents, despite spending the past few years in prison, Sweeney is still a member of the Hells Angels. In 2017, he told the parole board that he plans to leave the motorcycle club when his is "able to quit face to face", and that he needs to do it "with a handshake" when he is released from prison.

Sweeney's writ of habeas corpus application is scheduled to appear in court on May 13, about a month before his next parole board hearing.

If Sweeney's parole application is successful, he will be out of prison at the end of June, said Thliveris. Otherwise, he said his client is up for statutory release in December after serving two-thirds of his sentence. 

SOURCE: CBC

Mongols MC President Arrested

El Paso, Texas, USA (April 30, 2019) BTN — The president of the El Paso chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club was arrested Monday during an early Monday raid at his Northeast home, police said.

Charles Edward Anderson Jr. is accused of assaulting a former rival club member earlier this month at a motorcycle garage, El Paso police said.

The Mongols Motorcycle Club are a recent arrival in El Paso and one of the world's largest "1 percenter" clubs, which law enforcement considers an outlaw biker gang. Anderson, 46, was arrested on a charge of engaging in organized criminal activity-assault causing bodily injury.

Anderson allegedly assaulted David Griego , 48, on April 5 at the Busted Knuckle Motorcycle Garage on Hondo Pass Drive, police said in a news release.

The garage is owned by Anderson, according to county business records.

Anderson was arrested at 4:45 a.m. Monday when a multi-agency law enforcement team raided his home in the 8300 block of Mount Latona Drive, police said.

The arrest and search warrants were served by a team including the police SWAT team and Gang Unit, Texas Department of Public Safety, FBI Safe Streets Gang Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A jail log shows that Anderson was later released from jail on Monday on a $25,000 bond.

The Mongols are a recent arrival in El Paso and one of three major motorcycle clubs in the city, a police gang [sic] investigator testified earlier this year in the trial of a member of the Kinfolk MC convicted of killing the El Paso Bandidos chapter president.

Kinfolk member Javier "Jake" Gonzalez was sentenced to 56 years in prison in the murder of Juan "Compa" Martinez Jr. and wounding three other bikers in a bar shooting.

The Bandidos have been in El Paso for more than 50 years and the Kinfolk began in 2016.

Last August, Anderson was identified by El Paso police as a member of the Heathen Horde Motorcycle Club. Anderson was among Heathen Horde members arrested for allegedly assaulting members of the Valley Boys Motorcycle Club at the 5 Points Bistro in the Five Points neighborhood.

Anderson is scheduled to go on trial in June on aggravated assault charges in that case. Social media posts show at least one other then-member of the Heathen Horde now displays Mongols membership.

The Mongols began 50 years ago with 15 members in the East Los Angeles before expanding to other parts of Southern California. The Mongols display the diamond-shaped "1 %" patch used by what law enforcement term outlaw motorcycle gangs.

The term "1 percenter" originated after the 1947 biker riot in Hollister, California, when the American Motorcyclist Association declared that 99 percent of motorcyclists were good, law-abiding citizens, implying that one percent were outlaws.

The Mongols now have chapters across the U.S. and a dozen countries. The Mongols website lists 11 chapters in Texas, though El Paso is not one of the cities on the list.

SOURCE: KTSM

Hells Angels MC in Woodbridge grows

Toronto, ON (April 28, 2019) BTN — There was cake, hockey on TV and no reports of arrests at a party in Woodbridge on Saturday night to welcome Prince Edward Island bikers into the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. The Charlotteown bikers were given their winged skulls patches at the party, announcing full membership into the motorcycle club, which now has 467 charters in 58 countries.

The addition of the new Maritime charter comes as Quebec Hells Angels have re-rebounded on the streets in Quebec and Ontario after dozens of members were imprisoned in the early 2000's. Quebec police hit the club with a string of massive operations targeting drug trafficking and marijuana production in the 2000's that seriously hobbled the club.

In 2009, there were just eight members in good standing in Quebec on the streets and another four junior members, LaPresse newspaper reported. The rest of the club’s members were in prison, dead or fugitives.

At the start of 2000, the Hells Angels had 18 charters in Canada. The Woodbridge Hells Angels sponsored the Martimers for membership in the club, which now has 44 charters in Canada, including two in the Maritimes.

There are five charters in Quebec, 10 in B.C., 6 in Alberta, 2 each in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 17 in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, according to the club’s website.

The Ontario charters are in Keswick, Kitchener, Oshawa, Simcoe County, Toronto, East Toronto, West Toronto, Windsor, Woodbridge, North Toronto, London, Hamilton, Niagara, Brantford, Thunder Bay, Brooklin and a chapter called the Nomads, based near Ottawa.

Prince Edward Island bikers began wearing patches with “Woodbridge” on them two years ago, announcing their connection to the Ontario bikers.

At that point, they were considered a “hangaround” charter but they have now grown into a full charter of the international club. Only bikers who have been voted into the club are allowed to wear the club’s distinctive wings skull patch. The Hells Angels were driven out of the Maritimes in 2001, when police shut down the Halifax charter.

During that police operation, four of the club’s seven Halifax members went to prison and authorities seized the clubhouse. The Woodbridge charter of the Hells Angels played host last month to more that 350 bikers from across Canada and at least one from the Dominican Republic at the funeral of murdered Mississauga Hells Angel Michael (Diaz) Deabaitua-Schulde.

Deabaitua-Schulde was shot dead shortly before noon on March 11, 2019, outside a gym in Mississauga. Three Montreal men have been charged with first-degree murder for Deabaitua-Schulde’s death and another Montreal man has been charged with complicity after the fact.

SOURCE: The Star

Hells Angels funeral in Bonn

Bonn, Germany (April 26, 2019) BTN — At the North Cemetery in Bonn, around 300 members of the Hells Angels have gathered to bury a man from their own ranks. About 70 came on motorcycles, the police shows presence around the cemetery.

The memorial service lasted for about an hour on a grassy area outside the cemetery. Two daughters of the deceased held funeral speeches in front of the assembled rockers and emphasized that their father had not been "a criminal" or "thug", but had spent his entire life doing honest work. At 4 pm the Hells Angels started their journey home in small groups. According to police, there were no incidents.

The late 58-year-old was a full member of the Hells Angels, confirmed Frank Hanebuth, longtime boss of the Hanoverian charter of Rockergang General-Anzeiger. "He has been with us for about two years," says Hanebuth. "A reliable man with experience in the security industry." The dead man comes from the Bonn region; his family chose the Nordfriedhof for the urn burial.

There were mourners from all over Germany, some from the Netherlands and Great Britain. What the rocker has died, according to Hanebuth seems to be unclear. The results of the autopsy are still pending, said the Hells Angels president.


In Spain, Hanebuth and 45 others are charged with forming a criminal organization allegedly active in Mallorca. The rocker boss himself sat on the holiday island long in custody and is released after media reports on bail. According to charges, he faces 13 years imprisonment and a fine of 4.2 million euros.

The prosecutor Hanover is currently investigating on suspicion that Hanebuth in the spring of 2018 had been involved in a protection racket in Langenhagen. The victim was said to have been a workshop owner. Hanebuth denies the allegations.

SOURCE: Express

Sons of Silence MC members facing charges

Williston, North Dakota, USA (April 26, 2019) BTN — Two members of the Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club are accused of conspiring to commit an assault in late March. Michael Jon McCreary, 52, was charged Wednesday, April 24, with aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, both class C felonies. Earl Benjamin Brewer, 49, was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, a class C felony.

Police say that Brewer paid McCreary $2,000 to attack one of Brewer’s former co-workers.

Officers were called to the 900 block of Energy Street on the morning of March 28 and found a man with a bleeding cut on his head, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in Northwest District Court. The man told police that at around 7 a.m. that day, he’d heard a knock on his door and saw someone outside he didn’t recognize, so he didn’t answer the door.

He said about two hours later, the same man knocked again, but he still didn’t answer, court records indicate. He saw the man, later identified as McCreary, get into a silver Ford F-150 pickup. Around 9:30 a.m., the man got in his own pickup truck to leave, but when he put it in gear, he heard a loud noise, charging documents state.

He saw the lugnuts had been removed from the front passenger-side wheel, causing the wheel to fall off.

The man told police that he saw McCreary in the same silver F-150 from earlier in the morning parked about 100 yards away and started to walk toward him. McCreary introduced himself as “John Bishop” and the two shook hands, investigators wrote in the probable cause affidavit.

When the man turned around, McCreary hit him in the head with a large wrench, court documents said. The man threw his phone and headphones at McCreary, and McCreary drew a large knife and started to chase him. McCreary shouted “That’s what you get for trying to snitch on work!” as the man ran away, police said. The man told officers he believed the assault was related to a previous job, and that some of his coworkers from that job were associated with the Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club.

A witness saw the assault, police wrote in the charging documents, and a witness also told officers that Brewer paid McCreary $2,000 to make sure the man McCreary assaulted “did not make it to work.” Police were able to review text messages between McCreary and Brewer, who recently became associated with the Sons of Silence, court records state. Brewer is a former coworker of the man who was attacked.

The two charges are the second time this month McCreary has been accused of an assault related to the Sons of Silence. On April 12, he was charged with a class C felony count of aggravated assault after an incident on April 6 at the Grand Williston Hotel.

A man at the hotel told police he’d been working as a security guard when there was a private party that included members of the club. He said he saw McCreary hit another person on the head and stepped in to stop the situation from escalation, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

McCreary, who was wearing a vest with “Sons of Silence” on it, pushed him, and a group of other men in similar vests surrounded him, court records said. The group told him to “Stay out of club business,” the man told investigators. The man said he fell and then McCreary hit him on the head with a foot-long metal flashlight, charging documents indicate.

At a bond hearing Wednesday, Eric Lundberg, assistant state’s attorney for Williams County, said McCreary was accused of committing three assaults on three different people in less than a month. McCreary was charged with a class B misdemeanor count of simple assault on Tuesday, April 23. “The state is very concerned about the danger to the community,” Lundberg said.

Jeremy Curran, McCreary’s defense attorney, said his client had a limited criminal history and had never failed to appear for court. He said McCreary had ties to the community and lived with his wife of 25 years. Northwest District Judge Josh Rustad set McCreary’s bond at $15,000 for both cases. A bond hearing for Brewer had not been scheduled as of Thursday afternoon.

SOURCE: Williston Herald