Michael Plante

Plante was born in North Vancouver, the son of a teacher.[1] He grew up in Vancouver, Revelstoke, Powell River, Chilliwack, New Westminster, and Burnaby.[1] He graduated from Cariboo Hill secondary school in Burnaby in 1986.[1] In 1990-1991, he criminology at Douglas College.[1] He often applied to the Vancouver Police Department, but was always turned down.[1] Plante claims to have been inspired into becoming an informer within the ranks of the Hells Angels by reading the 1996 book Into the Abyss by Yves Lavigne, which is a biography of Anthony Tait.[1]

Plante lived in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where he worked as a bouncer while engaging in bodybuilding.[2] Plante had no criminal record, but had once been charged with assault.[3] He worked at the bar at the North Burnaby Inn in Burnaby owned by the Hells Angel Robert "Bob" Green.[4] Alarmed at the way that the bar was a front for organized crime, Plante moved to Medicine Hat, but returned to the Lower Mainland when he found things were no different in Alberta with the bars there being used by the Hells Angels.[4] Initially, he worked in a warehouse for Costco, but returned to working in bars for financial reasons owing to the high cost of living in the Lower Mainland.[4] He worked in a series of bars such as the Dell Hotel, the Marble Arch, and the Cecil Hotel which all used by the Hells Angels for their criminal activities.[4] At the Cecil Hotel owned by the Hells Angel Randy Potts, Plante worked as a "mule" smuggling cocaine and cash for the Hells Angels.[4]

Potts was a "prospect" (the second level in an outlaw biker club) and in November 2002, he was beaten up by his enemy Audey Hanson.[4] Most damaging for Potts, Hanson stole his bikers vest with the Hells Angel half-patch.[4] Potts brought along Plante for moral support when met his sponsor, the "full patch" Hells Angel Lennie Robinson, to explain that his bikers vest had been stolen.[4] Furious, Robinson slapped Potts across the face and beat him up.[5] Robinson told Potts that he would have to get his Hells Angels vest back or be expelled from the Hells Angels.[5] Potts recruited Plante into a scheme to retrieve the stolen vest and the two men took to watching Hanson's house.[6] In January 2003, Potts gave Plante an Uzi submachine gun and a .38 handgun.[6] Potts told Plante that he wanted him to kill Hanson, not just get back the stolen vest.[6] Plante later commented that having him murder Hanson would limit if not eliminate altogether the legal liability for Potts. Plante and Potts broke into Hanson's house to get back the vest, but Plante intentionally missed when he opened fire on Hanson.[6] Potts was angry that Plante had failed to kill Hanson and told him that he expected him to try again.[6]

Appalled at the prospect of becoming a murderer, especially since the issue at stake was merely a leather bikers vest, Plante contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and stated he wanted to become an informer.[6] Plante stated that he had been ordered by another Hells Angels, David Patrick O'Hara, to bring a man to O'Hara's Surrey home where the man was beaten for 15 minutes.[7] According to Plante, O'Hara then told him: "Take him back to Vancouver and get $20,000 from him."[7] After his release from the Surrey Pretrial Center where he had held on charges of extortion and assault in July 2003, Plante contacted the Mountie Douglas Collins about becoming an infomer.[8]

Plante had ties with the East End Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels, which was the most powerful Hells Angels in western Canada.[9] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer Paulson told the journalists William Marsden and Julian Sher: "The East End chapter is the most senior, the most powerful. If we were successful in taking them out, that's where we would have the most impact on their operations"..[9] The intention behind Operation E-Pandora was to gather enough evidence to lay the Hells Angels as a criminal syndicate that merely posed as a motorcycle club..[9] the president of the East End chapter was John Bryce who along with his half-brother Lloyd "Louie" Robinson dominated the chapter..[9] Bryce owned a $600, 000 house in Burnaby plus three more houses with a total value of $2 million in the Lower Mainland..[9] Robinson had no job or known source of income, but lived in a condo worth $1 million in West Vancouver..[10]

Plante worked for the RCMP for an operation codenamed E-Pandora.[6] Starting in July 2003, Plante met with his police handlers in a van near his apartment in New Westminster.[8] Plante later told Kim Bolan, the crime correspondent of the Vancouver Sun newspaper: "“There was really nothing going on. Everything is pretty quiet. I am actually meeting more with the cops than I am with the Hells Angels."[8] Lloyd "Louis" Robinson, a senior member of the East End chapter was angry with Plante and he was out of favor with the Hells Angels in the summer of 2003.[8]

In September 2003, Plante came into Robinson's favor and he had information for his police handlers.[8] Plante was sent to Montreal to threaten a witness against Robinson's son into changing his testimony.[8] Upon his return to the Lower Mainland, Plante told Potts about a barrel of ephedrine he had access to, which could be used to make methamphetamine.[8] Plante purchased the ephedrine from the drug dealer Wissam "Sam" Ayach and delivered it to Potts.[8] Plante stated: "I was driving out to this place and I was dropping off first one kilo, then two kilos and then it would take maybe a day or two days to pay me. I did this non-stop from September ’03 till probably December ’03 — just from that barrel."[8] Plante would make deliveries to Pott's mother, who lived in a trailer park in Surrey.[8] Plante recalled: "“I would drop meth off to his mom and his mom would take the meth and she would hand me $25,000. She would say, ‘Is it all there Micheal?’ ‘Yes, Mrs. Potts, it is all there.’ She would say, ‘Do you want an apple?’ ‘No thank you.’".[8] In the fall of 2003 Plante met in a motel room with the Mountie Bob Paulson about signing the contract to become an agent source informer.[8] Plante described Paulson as a man who dressed colorfully wearing a leather coat and cowboy boots.[8]

Plante became an agent source informer (an informer with a formal contact to be paid a certain sum by the police) and was paid $14, 000 Canadian dollars per month in exchange for wearing a wire.[6] Alongside his cash payments, Plante also received free vacations to Mexico, a 1997 Mustang automobile, had the RCMP pay for his meals at restaurant with the tab often running up to $2, 000 per meal, and pay the lease on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.[6] The generous payments led for the media to later dub Plante the "million dollar rat".[6] As part of his agent source work, Plante formally applied to join the Hells Angels and was given menial tasks to perform to test his willingness to serve the Angels.[8] Plante did not know how to ride a motorcycle and had to take a course to learn how to ride one.[8] In December 2003, Plante attended the party to mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the East End chapter in December 1983.[8] Plante remembered of the party: "I hated being around them. I hated talking to them. I hated the whole thing. All they talked about was Hells Angels — drugs, making money from drugs. It is like being around someone and all they talk about is curling. Curling, curling, curling, curling. It was so boring".[8]

Plante explained to the RCMP that the secret of the Hells Angels hand gestures with for example a gesture that mimicked turning a car ignition key indicated that someone had a kilogram of drugs to sell.[6] Plante primarily worked alongside Hells Angels associate Kerry Ryan Renaud who manufactured and sold methamphetamine for the "full patch" Hells Angels Johnny Punko and Ron Lising.[11] Renaud's methamphetamine lab was located in a barn just outside of Abbotsford and Plante recorded Renaud as saying to fellow methamphetamine cooks: "This is how it's going to work. This is how we are going to make our money".[12] Plante recorded one "prospect" Hells Angel, Jamie Holland, refuse orders to clean the toilets of the "full patch" members under the grounds " we don’t clean toilets. We’re gangsters."[13] Plante stated that the comment was taken as an insult.[13] Plante never joined the Hells Angels as the group's rules require that a member be sponsored by a "full patch" Hells Angel who had known him for five years, which did not apply in his case.[7]

Plante recorded Punko as telling him that the Hells Angel Gino Zumpano "took a walk" with Clayton Roueche, the leader of the United Nations gang.[14] Plante later testified that remark meant that an important meeting had taken place between Zumpano and Roueche.[14] Punko told Plante that United Nations who previously been the enemies of the Hells Angels were now going to become their allies.[14] Punko further told Plante that he still disliked the United Nations and if any of their members entered the Brandi's Show strip club owned by Zumpano: "If we walk in there and they're in Brandi's, they're going to get pounded out".[14] Plante recorded that the Hells Angel David Giles, a "full patch" member of the East End chapter, had been hired by Roueche to beat up two of his drug dealers whom he suspected of stealing from his gang.[15]

On 6 September 2004, Plante received a phone call telling him to go to the 8 Rinks sports center in Burnaby to meet Lising and another Hells Angel associate Nima Ghavami.[16] Upon arriving, Plante was told by Lising to deliver a pound of methamphetamine wrapped in a paper bag to the counter of a popular deli at a mall in Vancouver.[16] The police followed Plante and covertly photographed him dropping off the methamphetamine.[16] Later that day, Plante received a text from Lising telling him to go to a restaurant in Hope where he was to sit at a particular table and read a newspaper to meet a drug dealer from Kelowna who was to give him $10, 000 in cash.[16] Plante was ordered to write and give the drug dealer a note protesting that he used a cell phone that Lising had given him for drug deals for personal calls.[16] The note read: "I don't care if you are calling taxis or pizzas, don't use that fucking phone!"[16] The man from Kelowna arrived and gave Plante $5, 000 dollars in cash as he claimed that he was too poor to pay the full $10, 000 that he had promised.[16] Lising sent the man a threatening text that read "Hey fuck face, that's not what you promised!"[16]

The operation came to an end in January 2005 when Plante testified that he could not longer handle the stress of being an informer.[7] On 15 July 2005, the RCMP stormed into the clubhouse of the East End chapter with warrants for the arrest of 16 Hells Angels based on the evidence collected by Plante..[9] During the raids of Operation E-Pandora, the RCMP seized $7 million dollars worth of illegal goods including 20 kilograms of cocaine, 20 kilograms of methamphetamine, 70 kilograms of marihuana, five handguns, 11 sticks of dynamite and two methamphetamine labs.[17]Plante was paid a total of $1 million for his undercover work.[16] The Crown was desperate for evidence to convict the members of the Hells Angels East End chapter that they were quite literally willing to pay any price for information that would provide the necessary evidence for a conviction.[18] On the basis of the evidence collected by him, the RCMP arrested 18 men, 6 of whom were "full patch" Hells Angels.[16] At the trials of the accused, Plante served as the star witness for the Crown.[19] In 2006, Plante testified that his reasons for becoming an informer were: "Moral and ethical reasons. There was no grudge for doing what I did. The things the Hells Angels were getting away with, I didn't think it was right."[7]

The defense lawyers for the accused noted that Plante had committed many crimes as an informer such as numerous assaults and painted him as a criminal who only turned Crown's evidence to avoid prison time.[20] Don Morrison, the lawyer for Lising and Ghavami told Plante on 13 September 2006: ""You are not supposed to use violence. You can traffic in certain drugs and commit certain other crimes, but only after they have the approval of an exemption signed off by a senior officer in the police force involved in the investigation."[21] Plante in turn reply that he engaged in violence under the orders of the Hells Angels.[21] The Crown and Plante answered that he had to commit crimes to earn the trust of his Hells Angels masters.[20] Most of the accused were convicted.[20]

Plante has since changed his name and now lives in hiding.[13] In 2018, he testified for the Crown at a civil forfeiture case where the province of British Columbia sought to seize three clubhouses belonging to the Hells Angels in East Vancouver, Nanaimo and Kelowna as the proceeds of crime.[13] Plante testified that the Hells Angels were not a motorcycle club, but rather a criminal organization that posed as a motorcycle club.[13] Plante denied that he was a "rat", telling Boland in 2013: "I wasn't a rat. They were not my friends. I wasn't friends with any of them. I was doing a job. I wanted to leave a legacy. I wanted to do something significant in my life. I never bartered or sold myself to the RCMP for money. That was the HA's angle."[1]

• Langton, Jerry (2013). The Notorious Bacon Brothers Inside Gang Warfare on Vancouver Streets. Toronto: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 9781118404577.
• Hall, Neal (2011). Hell To Pay: Hells Angels vs. The Million-Dollar Rat. Toronto: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0470680962.
• Sher, Julian; Marsden, William (2006). Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers' Empire of Crime. Toronto: Alfred Knopf Canada. ISBN 9780307370327.