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Not solely are three former clubhouses to be bought off by the federal government this spring, however there was an exodus from the Kelowna chapter
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It has been a difficult 12 months for B.C. Hells Angels.
Not solely are three of their former clubhouses about to be bought off by the B.C. authorities this spring, however there was an exodus from the Kelowna chapter.
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Damiano Dipopolo, a former Kelowna chapter president, was kicked out of the Hells Angels final fall. A few of his chapter-mates adopted him voluntarily.
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And in January, Damion Ryan, a B.C. native and full-patch member of the Hells Angels, was charged with being a part of an unsuccessful murder-for-hire plot within the U.S. concentrating on two Iranian dissidents dwelling there.
Ryan, who’s a part of the Wolfpack gang alliance, is at the moment in a Manitoba jail, awaiting trial on drug trafficking prices in that province, in addition to firearms prices in Ontario. It isn’t recognized if the U.S. has utilized but for his extradition.
The indictment within the case says Ryan was working for Iranian drug lord Naji Zindashti — on orders from the Iranian regime — when he was allegedly recorded on an encrypted gadget agreeing to place collectively a crew to do the hit for $350,000 US, plus $20,000 in bills.
Ryan was most just lately a member of the Hells Angels Attica chapter in Greece, however Postmedia has discovered he has left that biker gang for the closer-to-home Haney chapter, of which his uncle is a long-time member.
Different B.C. Hells Angels have been charged, convicted or sentenced to jail for numerous offences during the last 12 months.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the anti-gang Mixed Forces Particular Enforcement Unit, stated in a current interview that a number of the older Hells Angels — who’ve been a part of the gang because it began in B.C. in July 1983 — don’t see eye-to-eye with a number of the membership’s newer members.
Dawn
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“These older guys are calling these new guys coming within the new gangster-bikers, who’re creating turmoil throughout the B.C. Hells Angels,” she stated. “What’s occurring now reveals the dysfunction of the growing old management.”
Among the youthful Hells Angels and their associates have been mired within the long-running province-wide gang battle. Ryan, for instance, has been focused twice by would-be hitmen and escaped. Earlier than his 2022 arrest on the Manitoba prices, CFSEU had included Ryan in a public warning associated to the gang battle.
Additionally included within the public warnings was Hells Angels affiliate Andy St. Pierre. He as later shot and wounded in December 2023 within the parking zone of a Superstore in Mission. Nobody has been charged.
Whereas Mission RCMP didn’t determine St. Pierre by identify, they stated he “is understood to police and is believed to have ties to the B.C. gang battle.”
Postmedia has additionally discovered that for the reason that East Finish, Kelowna and Nanaimo clubhouses have been seized by the director of civil forfeiture a 12 months in the past this week, the bikers have been in search of locations to lease to carry their weekly “church” conferences.
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Final October, the Supreme Courtroom of Canada refused to listen to a Hells Angel enchantment of the seizures.
Civil Forfeiture Workplace executive-director Phil Tawtel just lately informed Postmedia that he anticipated “liquidating the properties within the spring.”
Dipopolo was one of many Hells Angels defendants in a 16-year court docket battle over the clubhouses, which the B.C. authorities argued had been used for legal actions.
Nobody from the Hells Angels responded to a request for remark Tuesday. Dipopolo earlier declined an interview request by one in all his contacts.
The bikers are nonetheless anticipated to carry their annual rides, that are obligatory for members, starting subsequent month in East Vancouver.
Winpenny stated that even with the problems dealing with the Hells Angels, “they’re probably the most highly effective organized crime teams, not solely in B.C., however nationally and internationally with connections all around the world.”
“We’re not naive to assume that this present turmoil will have an effect on their potential to proceed to function their legal enterprises,” she stated.
kbolan@postmedia.com
X.com/kbolan
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