OFF THE WIRE
THEY vowed to come in peace, claiming they would bring a law-abiding alternative to the Hells Angels.
Yet the arrival of the Rock Machine motorcycle gang in 2008 has only led to increasing turmoil on Winnipeg streets.
Police sources told the Free Press this week the Rock Machine expanded to 17 full-patch members following a chapter meeting this summer. They have also recruited new members from outside the province, including a high-profile gangster from Vancouver.
They are trying to become the top criminal dogs in the province -- a fact they made crystal clear to police after most members and associates of the Hells Angels were arrested in December 2008 as part of Project Divide, which used an undercover agent to record dozens of drug deals on video. It was the third major bust in five years.
"Thanks for handing us the province," a Rock Machine member told gang-unit officers following the bust, a source told the Free Press this week.
Now the Rock Machine is locked in an ugly street battle with members of the Redlined Support Crew, the new gang on the block recently formed by the Hells Angels to try to maintain their status at the top of the drug-dealing food chain.
It wasn't supposed to be this way -- if claims by the Rock Machine were to be believed.
Their 2008 resurgence in Canada -- eight years after they vanished following a long and bloody war with the Hells Angels in Quebec -- was no reason for police or the public to be alarmed, the group's spokesman told the Free Press at the time.
They claimed to be more interested in selling houses than pushing drugs in neighbourhoods. "There's lots of money to be made legally. The real estate market is looking really good right now," longtime biker "J.D.," told the Free Press from his Saskatchewan home. "We're just trying to be a law-abiding alternative to the Hells Angels. We're not going to be competing with anybody. If you get caught selling drugs, you're kicked out. Losers sell drugs."
The Rock Machine had been off the national radar until two members of its Australian chapter showed up at Richardson International Airport in September 2008, claiming they were headed to the Interlake for a weeklong fishing trip.
However, the Sydney residents had flown here at the invitation of western Canadian bikers who had visions of setting up a Rock Machine chapter in Manitoba. They were planning to meet in Gimli to map out the process, but plans were scuttled when customs agents searched their luggage. They found several biker vests, flags and other paraphernalia.
Michae l Xanthoudakis and Eneliko Sabine were detained after it was also learned both men had criminal records in Australia. They were quickly deported.
A government lawyer told court at the time that Canadian police circulated a bulletin warning of the impending resurrection of the Rock Machine and the rumoured meeting in Gimli. Police were told to be on guard for foreign bikers who may be travelling to Canada. The government cited the Rock Machine's dark history, which included links to 150 murders in Quebec during a turf war in the 1990s. Among those victims were two prison guards and an 11-year-old boy who was hurt after a car-bombing.
The Rock Machine was absorbed into the Bandidos in 2000. Several members joined the Hells Angels when the Bandidos refused to grant full-patch status to them immediately. The Rock Machine was reborn after the fall of the Bandidos, which ended in the slayings of eight members in Ontario in 2006.
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