The Legislature Raids

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Influential Hells Angel dies on flight to Maui
 
Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, December 15, 2006

An influential member of the Hells Angels who owned a Super Valu in Vancouver's West End, died Wednesday on an airline flight to Maui.

Ross Douglas McLellan, 59, a key member of the Hells Angels chapter in Haney, died of natural causes, said RCMP Chief Supt. Bob Paulson.

"He was a fairly significant and senior player in the Haney chapter," said Paulson, who is based in Ottawa. "He was an older fellow who had been around for a long time and was very influential."

McLellan was accompanied on the trip to Maui by other Hells Angels members, said RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, in charge of outlaw motorcycle gang investigations for the RCMP in B.C.

McLellan grew up in Vancouver's Point Grey and became a wealthy businessman, with many real estate interests plus his West End supermarket, added Shinkaruk. He joined the Hells Angels about 12 years ago.

"He got into the Hells Angels late in life. He was a millionaire prior to joining the Angels."

About McLellan's late entry into the motorcycle gang, Shinkaruk said: "People have their different reasons for becoming Hells Angels and there have been a few people who were successful and joined up later in life.

"It's not common but it has happened a few times."

Shinkaruk said that McLellan lived in Maple Ridge where he had many real estate holdings.

His ownership of the West End Super Valu was revealed in 2004 by The Vancouver Sun in an article detailing the extensive business holdings of Hells Angels members in B.C.

McLellan had been in the grocery trade for decades.

The Hells Angels are the most powerful and largest outlaw motorcycle gang in Canada, with 32 chapters and about 500 members, including seven chapters in B.C. The Annual Report on Organized Crime in Canada, released by the Criminal Intelligence Service in 2004, said the Hells Angels use lower-level criminal gangs and intermediaries to try to conceal criminal activities from police.

Members of the Hells Angels have been convicted for cocaine trafficking, assault, extortion and weapons offences -- but Hells Angels spokesmen have repeatedly said the motorcycle club has no business interests and no control over the lives of individual members.

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Sometimes people say they don't believe organized crime has reached into all levels of our society. They believe that the Hells Angels, for example, are a motorcycle club, nothing much to worry about. I believe otherwise. Most people also believe that something has gone terribly wrong even within our Canadian society. But they don't connect the dots. Maybe it's too awful. But unless we face the problem, we'll never fix the problem. The story copied above helps us realize that even a mature, well-established man was somehow lured into joining a group well known to our Criminal Intelligence Service for serious crimes and for corrupting lower-level gangsters. Joining such a group puts its applicants through a horrific set of challenges first. For more: "The Road to Hell, How the biker gangs are conquering Canada" by Julian Sher and William Marsden, or "Paper Fan, the hunt for triad gangster, Steven Wong" by Terry Gould. Or "Bud, Inc., inside Canada's marijuana industry" by Ian Mulgrew. - BC Mary
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