CANADA - Biker gang expansion in high gear

OFF THE WIRE
By ROB LAMBERTI
and CHRIS DOUCETTE,
Toronto Sun

The Vagos biker club is accelerating hard to recruit new members and is quickly catching up to its archrivals the Hells Angels.
“I think it’s as simple as the Vagos want to expand as quickly as possible,” says a source with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
It now has about 900 known members in the U.S., the ATF source says.
Other sources indicate the gang has about 1,300 members worldwide, which includes chapters in Mexico.
“I think these guys are blossoming everywhere,” the source says. “They have almost as many chapters as the Hells Angels in the United States. They probably have equal numbers to the Hells Angels in the United States.”
He refused to speculate about the gang’s aims in Canada: “It’s tough to do that. The only thing that is very clear is the continuing expansion efforts of this group.”
But some say drugs are at the root behind the international expansion.
“My best guess would be to extend their drug trafficking, maybe drug manufacturing,” says a criminal intelligence specialist with the California justice department.
The U.S. attorney general’s 2008 report to congress on the growth of street gangs in suburbia alleged the Vagos were linked to Tijuana’s Arellano-Felix drug trafficking cartel, particularly for supplies of marijuana and cocaine.
The ATF source believes a new Nicaragua chapter was formed to help in the drug trade.
Last March, the gang’s chapters in California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona were targeted in Operation Everywhere. Police seized weapons and drugs, and uncovered a meth lab.