Hells Angels members leave a party on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles on June 28, 2003, in Millstadt, Ill. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

One percenters out of the mainstream riding crowd

According to the American Motorcyclist Association, 99 per cent of the people who ride motorcycles and the clubs they belong to are law-abiding citizens and organizations. The other one per cent, the organization said in the 1960s, are hard-riding, hard-partying, non-mainstream people.

Many bikers embraced that description.

But according to the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, law-enforcement officials changed the meaning of "one percenter" in the 1980s so that the term referred to members of criminal gangs. The Outlaws says it is a law-abiding organization whose members share a commitment to biking and brotherhood.

According to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, the Hells Angels is the foremost organized crime group in the country, topping traditional Mafia and ethnic gangs.

The Hells Angels began in 1948 in California and has grown to a network of 1,800 members in 22 countries.

It's estimated that Canada has about 500 full-fledged members in 32 active chapters across the country. The largest and most-feared chapter of the Hells Angels was formed in Montreal. In 1977, it merged with another gang called the Popeyes.

The FBI estimates the Hells Angels takes in $1 billion a year worldwide from drug trafficking.

In Quebec, the Rock Machine emerged in 1986 and quickly became the biggest rival of the Hells Angels. A turf war between the two gangs in the late 1990s claimed 150 lives, including two prison guards and 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers, who died when a car bomb exploded outside a biker hangout.

His death and the outrage that followed prompted Bill C-95, the legislation that stiffens penalties for convicted offenders who are shown to be members of established criminal organizations.

According to the CISC's 2004 report, the anti-gang law seems to be having an impact. The agency says the law has persuaded two of Canada's major bike gangs - the Outlaws and the Bandidos - to keep a low profile. The report added that of seven Outlaws chapters in Canada, only three were operating with any kind of stability.

Even the Hells Angels, the report said, was "experiencing varying degrees of weakness in Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Atlantic Canada due to law-enforcement operations, internal conflict and increased competition from other criminal organizations."

According to police, biker gangs share several characteristics:

• They show off their colours in public.
• Biker gangs use force and violence to survive and grow. Intimidation, arms and explosives are their weapons of choice.
• The organizations have a hierarchical structure. Committing crimes is left to new recruits while those higher up reap the rewards.
• The hierarchical structure allows the leaders to operate with impunity while flaunting their image of power to attract recruits and draw them into crime.
• It is difficult for law-enforcement agencies to infiltrate these organizations because becoming a member involves committing crimes. North American clubs also tend to require their members to own American-made bikes, often Harley-Davidsons.

Here's a brief look at the major biker organizations that have operated in Canada.

Hells Angels

Criminal Intelligence Service Canada describes the Hells Angels as the largest "outlaw motorcycle gang" in the country, with at least 32 active chapters and 500 members, especially in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

In its 2004 report, CISC said the Angels derives "significant financial income from various criminal activities across the country such as prostitution, fraud and extortion. However, drug trafficking, particularly cocaine, marijuana and increasingly methamphetamine, remains the primary source of illicit income."

The gang moved into Ontario in 2000. Before that, its only presence in the province was with a chapter of the Nomads, the club's elite branch. The Nomads doesn't tie itself to geographical locations and doesn't have formal clubhouses, like other chapters.

Within a year, the Angels had absorbed members of the Para Dice Riders, Satan's Choice and Last Chance, giving them at least 100 members in the Toronto area - the highest concentration of Hells Angels in the world.

In April 2007, police raided 40 Hells Angels locations in three provinces, arresting more than 30 people. Included in the raids was the largest clubhouse in Canada, the Hells Angels' downtown Toronto building.

Bandidos

The world's second-most powerful criminal biker gang - although it trails far behind the Hells Angels in Canada.

The Bandidos was founded in the 1960s in Texas. The club's old guard was said to be against its absorption of the Rock Machine's Ontario branches for fear of igniting the same kind of war with the Hells Angels that gripped Quebec for much of the 1990s and left at least 150 people dead.

The Bandidos has established a strong presence in Ontario and recently set up a "probationary" chapter in Winnipeg.

In April 2006, eight people were found dead in a farmer's field near the small town of Shedden, Ont., about 30 kilometres southwest of London. Police said the killings virtually wiped out the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos.

Outlaws

First established in the United States in 1935. The gang came to Canada in 1978 when several chapters of Satan's Choice in Montreal changed allegiance and set up shop as the Outlaws Motorcycle Club of Canada. The group is known to detest members of the Hells Angels.

Rock Machine

Second only to Hells Angels in Quebec. A long-running turf war with the Angels left more than 150 people dead as the two fought over the lucrative trade in illegal drugs. The war also led to the passage of anti-gang legislation by the federal government.

As the Hells Angels expanded into Ontario, so did the Rock Machine. The organization established three chapters. In 2001, it aligned itself with the Texas-based Bandidos, the world's second-most powerful biker gang.

Satan's Choice

Once one of Ontario's strongest motorcycle gangs, Satan's Choice became part of the Hells Angels' 2000-2001 expansion into Ontario. Satan's Choice had branches in Keswick, Kitchener, Oshawa, Sudbury, Simcoe County, Thunder Bay and Toronto - but nothing outside the province.

Para Dice Riders

Once considered Ontario's strongest biker gangs. Its membership was limited to the Toronto area. The group was absorbed by the Hells Angels in 2001, when the Angels moved into Ontario.

Last Chance

Another small Ontario-based biker gang that agreed to switch over to the Hells Angels when the world's most power biker gang moved into the province.

Lobos

Originally concentrated in the Windsor, Ont., area, the Lobos motorcycle gang decided to take up the Hells Angels on its offer of merger in 2001.

Loners

The Loners Motorcycle Club was founded in Ontario in 1979 with a handful of chapters, including a now-defunct one in southwestern Ontario that was headed by Wayne Kellestine. As part of its Ontario expansion drive, the Hells Angels tried to persuade the St. Thomas Loners chapter to join the Angels. Kellestine - who was injured in an assassination attempt in 1999 -resisted.

The club has expanded to the United States and Europe, but in Ontario, its highest profile in recent years was a legal fight by a Toronto chapter to keep its mascot on its property north of the city, in 2001. The neutered, declawed lion named Woody was moved to an animal sanctuary.

Vagabonds

Another Ontario-based motorcycle gang that was more or less absorbed by the Hells Angels when it expanded into Ontario in 2000-2001.

The Red Devils

Said to be the oldest motorcycle gang in Canada. The group is made up of a couple of dozen members concentrated in the Hamilton, Ont., area.