Dubai: They live by the their own rules. And kill by them.
Outlaw biker gangs are an established and clandestine cult group who control prostitution, strip clubs and exotic dancers, extortion, street drugs, illegal alcohol and gaming clubs, gun trafficking and racketeering — anything that can make a quick dollar. And for those who opt to become members of the “1 per cent” — members who are initiated into bike gangs and wear a patch — along with the gang’s “colours” — it’s a hard criminal existence where life is cheap and death comes quickly. And violently, as Sunday’s shoot out in a Waco highway diner showed with nine bikers dead and scores more injured.
And when gangs fall out or get into turf wars over who controls crime, the result is always death.
Montreal has witnessed its share of biker gang violence, with Hells Angels and the Rock Machine fighting, trading shootings and bombings — with innocent victims getting in the way.
In Oshawa, a blue-collar working class city just east of Toronto that’s the home to General Motors Canada and its production lines for Chevrolet cars and pickups — the biker culture thrives.
There, the Para Dice Riders rule the back alleys, strip clubs and street drug trade.
This writer met with the leader of that sect, a very heavy set tattooed man named Bernie G. At the time, he was so heavy and limbs so short, he was unable to get his leg over his customised Harley-Davidson motorcycle — and rookies who wanted to join the Para Dice riders helped lift his leg over the fuel tank. And because of his build, he was unable to wipe himself without assistance after defecating — another job for the rookies.
The gang hung out in a bungalow on a quiet dead-end street that backed onto the main Toronto-Montreal Highway 401. There, reinforced cinder block walls and a heavily barred and fortified front door was overwatched by a camera.
For the few outsiders let into this clubhouse, marijuana hung heavy in the air, scantily clad drug-dazed strippers lazed in various states of undress, and baseball bats pierced with nails left little room to second guess what would happen to those who didn’t follow the rules nor appreciate Bernie G.’s hospitality.
Days earlier, one of the initiated Para Dice Riders had been killed in a motorbike accident — run over by a 18-wheeler truck rig on that same Highway 401.
The biker’s family held a traditional Christian church service but his biker buddies sat at the back of the church, drinking Tim Horton’s coffee, eating doughnuts and smoking marijuana.
And when the biker’s body was taken to a graveyard, there the Para Dice Riders took over, with Bernie G. leading the filling in of the grave and the urination on the lowered coffin as heavy metal music blared and the gang drank beers and hard liquor.
This gang made its money from exacting ‘rent’ from the shops in the city’s downtown core, providing ‘security’ at the doors to night clubs, and managing the stage careers of the exotic dancers — mostly from Quebec or eastern Europe — and living off the avails of prostitution. North of Toronto, in clearings in forests or in the middle of fields where corn stalks grow high, they grow marijuana, sending it south to the United States and accepting pistols and ammunition for trade into Canada, where gun control is strict.
Their holiday? When every Friday the 13th rolled around, the gang skipped town, roaring in unison to wreak havoc on small towns and bars that dared serve them — or refused to serve them — all congregating in Port Dover on Lake Erie for mayhem and an inevitable murder or maiming of a rival gang member.
For those passing a rough and crime-ridden apprenticeship, the rewards came in respect, illegal cash, hard liquor, drugs and access to the stable of exotic dancers.
They live hard, die young, and, if they are lucky — end up in jail for long stretches. Even there, inside the federal prison system, biker rivalries can bring violence and painfully slow death — stabbed with a crudely made ‘shank’ or knife that’s been tipped in excrement and plunged into vital organs.
