A Hells Angels member wanted to have his own brother killed in an alleged plot that was exposed by a longtime Manitoba biker associate who was working undercover as a police agent, the Free Press has learned.
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James Allen Heickert, 44 -- a full-patch biker from the Oshawa, Ont., chapter -- is charged with conspiracy to commit murder against Thompson resident Sean Heickert, according to court documents obtained Thursday.
Dale Donovan (left) and Alan LeBras (right) were arrested Wednesday while Ian Grant (centre) is in prison.
Dean Gurniak, 34, and Stanley Lucovic, 44, are facing similar charges. They are also residents of Thompson.
The alleged plan to kill Sean Heickert began on Nov. 27 and may have forced police to bring an abrupt end to their year-long undercover probe, dubbed "Project Drill."
It may also explain why the man was taken into custody last weekend in Thompson following the shooting death of 33-year-old Hells Angels associate Bekim Zeneli.
RCMP released him days later without laying any charges and said they simply wanted to "question" him.
No arrests have been made in Zeneli's killing and it's not clear what, if any, link may exist between his death and this case.
A cop walks outside the Hells Angels clubhouse on Scotia St. Wednesday.
The plug was pulled on Project Drill Wednesday when more than 250 officers across Canada conducted a series of raids, arresting James Heickert, Gurniak, Lucovic and 13 others who they say had been involved in high-level drug trafficking and gun smuggling. Two other suspects were still being sought on warrants as of late Thursday.
Scotty "Taz" Robertson, 49, has been identified in court documents and by justice sources as the man who helped police expose the criminal activities, which included a threat to kill Sean Heickert during the past week.
Robertson was paid a hefty sum to work as an undercover agent, which allowed police to conduct surveillance and obtain wiretap evidence against the accused.
Robertson is no stranger to Manitoba's biker scene. He was connected to the now-defunct Spartans motorcycle gang in the 1980s and later joined the Redliners.
The Redliners were set up in the 1990s with people hand-picked by Walter Stadnick, a top Hells Angel based in Montreal who is credited with expanding the gang coast to coast. In 2004, Stadnick was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, participation in a criminal organization and drug trafficking.
The Redliners broke apart in the late 1990s when the Hells Angels chose the Los Brovos instead to represent them in Manitoba. Only one Redliner was made a Hells Angel, but he has since been kicked out of the gang.
Although not a member, Robertson never completely severed his gang connections.
"He's an old-time biker," a source said. "For the most part he always flew under the radar."
Another source said Robertson was close to Darwin Sylvester, the leader of the Spartans who disappeared in 1998 and is presumed dead.
"Him and Darwin were tight," he said. "They were always together."
Robertson was most recently working as a trucker driver in Thompson and is now in witness protection, according to justice sources.
He is the second person to infiltrate the Manitoba Hells Angels in recent years. Career criminal Franco Atanasovic was paid $525,000 for his undercover work that resulted in the February 2006 arrests of three full-patch members and 10 associates.
In this week's case, police arrested newly elected president Dale Donovan, local Hells Angel prospect Al LeBras, full-patch Ontario member Heickert and another full-patch member from Kelowna, B.C.
Arrests were also made in North Vancouver, Edmonton and Minnesota.
During the Project Drill investigation police seized 11 kilograms of cocaine, 2,000 tablets of methamphetamine, 13 pounds of marijuana, five machine pistols and three handguns imported unlawfully from the U.S.
Lawyers for the accused were given a huge volume of evidence Thursday morning including a computer hard drive and several binders. Bail applications are expected to begin as early as next week.
There's also another twist to the case.
The intended victim -- Sean Heickert -- is himself a convicted killer. He was only recently paroled after serving a lengthy prison sentence for manslaughter stemming from the death of an Ontario man in 1994, the Free Press has learned. Two co-accused were convicted of first-degree murder.
The men abducted the victim and took him to a home in retaliation for supposedly robbing and assaulting the mother of a co-accused. It was later learned it was not the victim, but his twin brother, who had attacked the woman. After being brutally beaten, the victim was taken to a wooded area and dumped. His body, partly eaten by animals, was found a month later.
www.mikeoncrime.com
bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca
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