clubhouse may be gone and their membership decimated by an undercover investigation that nailed the Halifax club, but police now say a former member of the only chapter east of Quebec is now part of a very elite group within the international gang.
Outlaw biker Jeffrey Albert Lynds has “moved on to the Nomads in Ontario,” RCMP Const. Stephen MacQueen said.A member of the RCMP-Halifax Regional Police combined forces intelligence unit, Const. MacQueen wouldn’t say where specifically Mr. Lynds was living, but said: “We still have one full-patch Hells Angel member here in the province and he’s a member of the Ontario Nomads.”On Jan. 29, 2003, the courts brought the hammer down on Mr. Lynds and fellow gang members, Arthur (Art) Daine Harrie and Clay Gordon McCrea. Mr. Harrie and Mr. McCrea got six years each all on drug charges, while Mr. Lynds was sentenced to three years and slapped with a lifetime firearms ban. The very same day, the bikers lost their Dutch Village Road clubhouse to the Crown under new anti-gang legislation.
The charges and the seizure stemmed from Operation Hammer, an undercover case that ended with a series of raids and arrests in December 2001.With three of its members awaiting trial on drug charges and a fourth, Neil William Smith, awaiting trial for murder, the Halifax chapter had slipped below the organization’s six-member minimum. Only Michael (Mike) Shawn McCrea, Michael (Speedy) Christiansen and Daniel Fitzsimmons remained and this time, they couldn’t rely on the support of Quebec Nomad, David (Wolf) Carroll. The godfather of the Halifax chapter is still wanted on 13 counts of murder stemming from the Quebec biker war. Instead, the Hells Angels pulled its trademark winged Deaths Head patch and rode off into the sunset.
Clay McCrea told the National Parole Board in June 2005 that he’d retired in good standing, along with his older brother, Mike, but was surprised at the club’s collapse. Mr. Harrie told the board in November 2005 that the Hells Angels had offered him a transfer to another chapter, but he decided to retire.
When released on parole, Clay McCrea and Mr. Harrie were banned from contact with any past or present member of the Hells Angels, including Mike McCrea.Const. MacQueen confirmed that all three did retire, but wouldn’t say whether they left on good terms.Mike, whose last name is often misspelled as McCrae or MacRae, was the reputed president of the Halifax chapter president, world secretary and international webmaster. The married father of one, who has always maintained that he was simply a member, is recovering from a battle with cancer and running a computer consulting business from his Porters Lake home.Mr. Smith recently lost an appeal of his murder conviction and remains in jail, while Mr. Fitzsimmons was booted out of the club, police previously said. In 2004, police said that Mr. Christiansen had transferred to the East End Hells Angels chapter in B.C. where his former 13th Tribe brother, David Giles, was a member. But the Kelowna Daily Courier reported in June 2007 that Mr. Christiansen was one of the founding members of a new chapter in Kelowna.Thursday is the first full day that Clay McCrea and Mr. Harrie can have contact with any past or present members of the Hells Angels because their sentences have expired. But Const. MacQueen won’t say that biker investigators are going to keep a sharp eye on these long-time criminals.“I guess we have an interest in anybody committing criminal offences, so if they commit criminal offences, they’ll be looked upon like anybody else. Right now, they’re not Hells Angels members so we don’t treat them any different than anybody else,” the officer said. While there’s no official Hells Angels chapter, the gang has “two support clubs in Nova Scotia,” which Const. MacQueen identified as the East Coast Riders and the Highlanders. And, he said, police “often see Ontario and Quebec, and Hells Angels members from across the country come here.”The Hells Angels “definitely have an influence and an impact on criminal activity in Nova Scotia. However, having a chapter here is like having a stake in the ground. It’s more of a visible thing that ‘This is our territory,’” Const. MacQueen said.
Having the Hells Angels patch with the words Halifax or Nova Scotia underneath “gives the perception to the public and to criminals that ‘This is our territory.’ Without that, they are missing that. However, that doesn’t mean that they still don’t have the influence and the fear of them is still very real among the criminal element.”
The public may not see Hells Angels in the headlines anymore, but police say the battle continues.“They’ve been declared a criminal organization. We don’t want them back. We do everything in our power to try to prevent them coming back,” Const. MacQueen said.
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