Mandarin killing highlights Hells Angels’ new business model

McIlquham — who was also known as Craig Brown, according to Halton Regional Police — got his nickname, “Truck,” because of his formidable size, just short of 300 pounds. He was shot to death at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, while leaving a Mandarin family-style restaurant in Burlington, about a five-minute drive from the Queen Elizabeth Way. His killing remains unsolved, but police say it was targeted.

Investigators have appealed to the public for anyone with dashcam footage of Fairview and Brant Streets between the hours of 4 and 10 p.m. on April 29. They are particularly interested, they say, in a late model, dark Honda Civic with tinted windows.

McIlquham’s killer is either very lucky or very experienced, Larry Tronstad, a retired organized crime specialist with the RCMP, said in an interview, noting that the killer’s drive out of the narrow parking lot could have been challenging, especially if someone had accidentally blocked his way.

“It’s brazen, brazen,” Tronstad said.

McIlquham, a father of three, had just dined with his wife and family.

Police have given few details of his shooting and no explanation has been offered to explain how McIlquham’s killer knew he would be at the restaurant.

Certainly, no clues come from his fellow Hells Angels, who have been notably low-key in the wake of the shooting. There were no apparent threats of retaliation and relatively few words of grief on his online memorial, with a notable absence of condolence messages from the Quebec arm of the Hells Angels, considered the club’s power base.

Back when McIlquham was starting out with the Angels decades ago, the club’s Quebec arm was locked in a loud and bloody war with the rival Rock Machine and then Bandidos clubs, a conflict that killed 160 people and injured another 300.

The battle was over drug turf and its casualties included Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy killed by flying shrapnel. That accidental death spurred the passage of tougher anti-organized crime legislation and saw the Hells Angels designated as a criminal organization.

Drugs are still an important source of revenue, but the Angels have also moved into less risky — but sometimes more profitable — enterprises like gambling and loansharking, experts say.

That sometimes puts them in partnerships with traditional Mafia groups, like the ‘Ndrangheta out of Calabria, Italy.

“Online gambling has been a venture for some ‘Ndrangheta clans, including those in the Toronto area and that was done with (outlaw motorcycle gangs),” Mafia expert Anna Sergi said in an email.

The rough reputation of Canadian Hells Angels has helped them expand their international reach in online gambling since the end of the biker wars, added author and academic Declan Hill Canadian Hells Angels. “The Canadian chapters are spoken of with fear and renown as the most violent of all the biker groups,” Hill, an associate professor in criminal justice and investigations at the University of New Haven, said in an email interview.

“The Quebec wars created long shadows.”

The internet has also greatly benefited Canadian Hells Angels in the 2000s, he said. “It is a globalized world and organized crime got the message sooner than most corporations of how to work and move in a new world.”

Before his murder, McIlquham was most notable for being charged in 2019 with being a leader in a major international, multimillion-dollar gambling and loansharking operation. That arrest came in the ill-fated Project Hobart investigation, which saw police allege a strong partnership between GTA Hells Angels and mobsters before the case fell apart over delays.

For a man with a sparse legitimate resume, McIlquham had plenty of possessions. Investigators in the 2019 Project Hobart case alleged he had a series of properties in the GTA, where he kept some of his cash in secret compartments and used trap doors to hide away gold, silver and jewelry.

The Crown also alleged in 2019 that he hid $11,000, a gun and a cellphone in a trap compartment in one of his vehicles.

McIlquham, who once ran a cheque-cashing service, spent much of his time lately in the Caribbean, where police said the Hells Angels had a hand in at least four illegal gambling websites; at the time of his murder, Revenue Canada was seeking $2 million in back taxes from 2014 to 2018.

That’s a far step up from McIlquham’s early days as a bodyguard for Walter (Nurget) Stadnick of Hamilton, once widely considered Canada’s top Hells Angel. In September 2004, Stadnick was convicted in Montreal on a variety of organized crime offences, including conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to traffic drugs and involvement in gang activities. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, reduced to about 14 for time served.

For a time in the early 2000s, GTA Hells Angels attempted to tackle the gang’s rough image as a manageable public relations challenge.

They offered a rare public apology in 2004 when one of their members was arrested after taking part in an attempted underworld hit at a California Sandwiches shop in North York that left bystander Louise Russo paralyzed from the waist down. Court later heard that North Toronto Hells Angel Paris Christoforou and underworld enforcer Antonio (Jelly) Borrelli were shooting at mobster Michele Modica, who was suspected of attempting to skip the country while owing $240,000 in gambling debt to an online gambling site based in Costa Rica, with Hells Angels and mob ties.

While the site’s web server was offshore, its muscle is in the GTA and southern Ontario through its biker and mob connections, police said. “What makes it local is how you collect the money,” Acting Supt. Keith Finn of the RCMP said. “You need to be able to back up the threats.”

Christoforou’s arrest pushed the local Hells Angels to a rare public apology, saying the club “extends our heartfelt sympathy” to Russo and her family. (Christoforou was kicked out of the club and stripped of his gambling enterprise while he was sent to prison.)

Meanwhile, the club’s public relations offensive continued into fall 2004 with a billboard next to the Don Valley Parkway noting that the original members of the Hells Angels were servicemen returning from the Second World War — “Still fighting for democracy and freedom,” it read.

The public relations blitz quickly fizzled, as the bikers focused on low-risk, high-reward crimes like gambling and loansharking.

Project Hobart — the investigation that nabbed McIlquham in 2019 — accused the Hells Angels of taking part in an international gambling ring with members of the GTA ‘Ndrangheta. Police touted 28 arrests and the disruption of an $131-million illegal gambling network linked to the Figliomeni crime family. McIlquham’s charges included possession of a restricted weapon, bookmaking and the commission of an offence for a criminal organization.

In making the arrests, the OPP announced they had seized more than $12 million in assets, including sports cars, two golf carts, seven residences, nine illegal handguns, jewelry valued at approximately $300,000, $330,000 in precious metals, $1.2 million in financial accounts and about $1.7 million in cash.

Gamblers were allowed credit limits as high as $20,000, but they were also expected to settle debts within a week, police said.

But the complex case was eventually thrown out of court after prosecutors took too long to bring it to trial amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic didn’t dry up the gambling partnerships or sever links between GTA Hells Angels and local mobsters, even though their favourite cafes, restaurants and gyms were closed and travel restrictions meant they couldn’t jet off to Italy or Mexico — or even Montreal or New York — to make deals.

Some GTA gamblers took advantage of the shutdown of government-run casinos during the pandemic to set up illegal luxury gambling spots of their own.

That included a Markham casino on Decourcy Court near Warden Avenue and Major MacKenzie Drive that was busted in the fall of 2020. It served forbidden delicacies like braised shark fins served by waiters in tuxedos, police said.

It was a “high-end operation for high-end clientele,” Det. Sgt. Ahmad Salhia of the York Regional Police organized crime bureau said.

The 53-room, cut-stone mansion was surrounded by a high, electronically-controlled metal fence and patrolled by armed guards with large German shepherd dogs.

Supt. Mike Slack of York Regional Police then said illegal gambling spots had also prospered after the province shut down legal casinos over COVID-19 fears.

“It opened up an opportunity for these more extravagant locations,” Slack said.

It didn’t hurt police that two of the guards outside the casino were playfighting when they were supposed to be watching for police or attackers from rival gambling organizations or street gangs.

After the Project Hobart case fizzled, McIlquham quietly moved to the Caribbean and closer to the club’s web servers.

It’s not clear when he returned to Canada but, clearly, he told one person too many of his return and his dinner plans on April 29.

One of the few people to give a tribute on his memorial page identified himself only as “John HAMC Caribbean,” for John, Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

“Brother, you are going to be a great loss in this world,” John HAMC Caribbean wrote. “We had a lot of laughter and fun. Going to miss you terribly. Strength to family and friends.”