How does the hells angels make their money
Every week, Fortune publishes a story from our magazine archives. On Tuesday, December 4, the fifth season finale of the FX drama Sons of Anarchy airs. The show follows a biker gang in Northern California.
Back inFortune 's Andy Serwer looked at the business dealings of the Hells Angels, and the descriptions below read as if they're ripped from a Sons of Anarchy script. First you hear the pulsating thunder of three dozen unmuffled Harley-Davidsons snaking around the bend.
Then you see them. An outlaw motorcycle gang, maybe Pagan's or even Hells Angels, overlords of the highway, pushing toward you in a double line.
Expressionless, they are ornamented with shaggy hair and beards, mosaics of tattoos, and ripped denim covered with patches of skulls, swastikas, and cryptic arrays of letters and numbers. Perhaps you're scared, if only briefly. If the bikers are Angels or one of the other major outlaw clubs -- the ones who live for biking and consider themselves apart from society -- you have reason to be nervous.
Federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ATFsay that outlaw bikers, with over clubs, 5, members, and at least 10, regular hangers-on, are one of the nation's largest organized criminal networks, after the Mafia and Asian gangs.
They are also a business. Most other bikers treat them with deference and fear. Says Anthony Tait, who worked undercover for the FBI as a member of the Hells Angels in the mids: I also heard murders being planned and descriptions of murders already committed. After being battered by a series of investigations that included Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations RICO prosecutions during the mid- and late s, the Angels and three other major bike gangs -- the Outlaws, Bandidos, and Pagan's -- are building back up again.
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Barger, 54, the organizing genius behind the Angels' growth, is scheduled to be released from prison this month. Police say he has been advising the club from his cell in Phoenix and is likely to reinvigorate the leadership. The Angels scoff at the picture law enforcement paints. They insist they are simply being persecuted because they live an outrageous lifestyle that defies society's petty rules -- and because police and federal agents are pumping them up as a threat to win bigger budgets.
A lot of people were in trouble at one time or another, but outside of the club. The government is trying to make a name for themselves by taking us down. Outlaw biking is principally a lifestyle for members of such clubs -- as it is for many other riders with no interest in crime who love powerful bikes and emulate the defiant outlaw style and customs.
When the gangs get rough, it's most often against other gangs. But for some Angels, the old lifestyle has yielded to the pursuit of wealth. Some live in expensive homes, drive luxury cars, and keep lawyers on retainer. Police say that the chief moneymaker for many Angels is manufacturing and distributing drugs, particularly methamphetamine, or ''meth,'' a type of speed that comes in a white powder and is usually snorted.
The drug, primarily used by lower-income whites, is made from domestically available chemicals. Bikers dominate the meth business, which government sources estimate is worth several hundred million dollars a year. Outlaw bikers have also been arrested and convicted for trafficking millions of dollars of cocaine.
They do business with Colombian cocaine dealers and have been linked to criminal activity with the Mafia. Major gangs avoid heroin and crack, however -- they don't like the idea of members getting hooked. They love firepower, and the weapons and technologies they use would be a significant addition to almost any country's armory.
Police have seized vast quantities of handguns, silencers, shotguns, Ms, AKs, MACs, and Uzis, as well as LAW rocket launchers, grenades, dynamite, bombs of all types, and C4 and other plastic explosives. In their illegal business activities, the bikers use walkie-talkies, mobile phones, pagers, cash counters, scramblers, police scanners, fax machines, PCs, electronic eavesdropping devices, and video surveillance.
Government agents recently recovered an ultrasophisticated, custom-made radio-wave detector the CIA would be proud to own. Biker expert and author Yves Lavigne provides endless detail about this phantasmagorical world of violence and crime in Hells Angels: Three Can Keep a Secret If Two Are Dead.
The Angels started out as legitimate antiheroes, organized in San Bernardino, California, in by World War II veterans. For years their greatest vice was local hell-raising. Marlon Brando brought them national attention when he played an angst-ridden gang leader in the film The Wild One. Four years later Sonny Barger formed the Oakland chapter, became the leader of the pack, and added a little more ''there'' to ''there'' by making it the mother chapter, or headquarters.
As the Angels grew, they started to cultivate their rebel image and to become more businesslike. By the mids, they were holding press conferences to put an upbeat spin on their activities.
They incorporated and trademarked their logo and the name Hells Angels. But, police say, because of mounting legal bills from arrests for mayhem during their wilder excursions, the Angels turned increasingly to the drug dealing that eventually became their major business.
They still try to maintain a positive image by organizing Toys for Tots benefit rides. It didn't hurt that the club had an exceptional chief executive officer. Police say Barger absorbed other groups calling themselves Angels and expanded the drug network. The club soon began to attract earnest police attention. Law enforcement prosecuted Barger and the Angels throughout the s and into the early Eighties with little success.
Though 16 Angels were convicted of firearms violations, a RICO attempt against 32 of them, including Barger, failed, and murder charges against him were dismissed.
In the late s, however, the feds nailed the club in two successful major investigations. A West Coast operation resulted in dozens of convictions and crippled the mother chapter, while the effort in the East brought billing and coding jobs work from home more sentences and shut down several chapters. The government also began a still pending forfeiture case against the powerful New York chapter's clubhouse, claiming it was used in drug trafficking.
What makes the Angels and the lesser outlaws so distinctive among criminal enterprises -- and adds to the frustration of law enforcement officials -- is that many Americans celebrate them and identify with them. The outlaws gleefully accepted the label, and many still call themselves one-percenters. The actual percentage is much smaller -- counting the hangers-on police call associates, only about 0. Forex trader business card plenty of people -- including many who have never even sat on binary options price action strategy motorcycle -- like their style and applaud them for defying convention and authority.
The Angels' colorful ferocity and independence have won them the sometime friendship of many celebrities. Music stars Willie Nelson, Bo Diddley, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead have all hung out with them.
Thompson rode with the Angels in the mids until he got on their nerves and they beat him up. Tough guy actor Mickey Rourke used to pal around with them until he unwisely gave them two Harley-Davidson Sportsters -- lightweight models considered ''girl bikes'' in the club.
After that the relationship soured. For years the Angels reportedly had a contract out on the life of Mick Jagger, the result of a falling-out over a Rolling Stones concert where a Hells Angel hired as a bodyguard was accused and later acquitted of having murdered a spectator.
The Angels have parlayed their notoriety into real clout by building a model decentralized organization.
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Its motto could be, Think globally, trash locally. Individual units have plenty of autonomy, but communications are excellent.
Local chapters, governed by elected officers, take care of their own business. The international chapters, including those in Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand, are separate entities. Though Barger is the godfather, there is no official international president, and no chapter claims to speak on behalf of the regional, national, or international organization. Recruiting is selective and rigorous. A would-be member must ride a Harley- Davidson -- no ''Jap-scrap'' is tolerated.
He must be nominated by a member and serve as a ''prospect,'' or probationary member, for about a year and a half, guarding clubhouses and bikes, cleaning up, and cruising in the rear during ''runs,'' when clubs song one day by trading yesterday chord in groups to party see diagram.
The prospects don't necessarily join the Angels to become criminals -- they join to be known as the baddest bikers in the world.
But almost invariably, say law officials, they have to commit some kind of crime how does the hells angels make their money become full members. Some chapters have reportedly required or suggested murder of a rival gang member or drug dealer. The money stays at the chapters except for what regional officers need to travel on club business -- plane fare, hotels, and car rentals. Who belongs to the Hells Angels? Most members are from working-class backgrounds. Some work in marginal blue-collar jobs; others run small businesses such as bike shops and tattoo parlors.
Many are rootless, with no links to the community they happen to live in. They tend to think they are okay; it's the rest of society -- the ''citizens'' -- who stock market abbreviation otcbb off track.
They're aging; many are in their 40s and 50s. No African Americans are to be found -- ''none has ever tried to get in,'' says one Angel, sounding like a member of a lily-white golf club. For many Angels the club is their family, their world. These are intensely bonded men with a strong code of mutual support. If one is attacked, the others must jump in. The club has written rules with strict penalties -- from suspension for those who don't pay dues to expulsion for members caught dealing substandard drugs, injecting narcotics, or using crack.
On occasion the penalties have been extreme. Quebec has had some of the world's most violent bike gangs; Canadian officials hold warring bikers responsible for more than 30 killings in the province from to One Angel alone, Yves ''Apache'' Trudeau, admitted to killing 43 people between and When the North chapter in Quebec got out of hand inthe Angels decided to liquidate it by wiping out its members. Canadian Angels murdered six of them, dumped their bodies in the St.
Lawrence River, and closed the chapter. Three Angels were convicted of the murders, and many others pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
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The typical Hells Angel is obsessed with strength and toughness, with taking risks and flaunting his sexual virility. Women are not allowed to be members; as ''old ladies,'' they are highly subservient. But they flock to the club because of the glamour and to be part of a strong extended family.
Some have ended up as prostitutes, abused, beaten, or even murdered. Still, they are usually remarkably loyal. The ATF and FBI say some have worked at telephone companies, major utilities, and even police departments, where they are suspected of providing intelligence for the club.
Almost all the chapters own clubhouses; some, such as those in New York City - and Oakland, are large buildings or complexes. Many have surveillance equipment and guards. But the drug money goes mainly to the members, not the institution. As a result, a fair number of them, particularly on the West Coast, are wealthy. Few do as well as Angel Kenneth Jay Owen, meth cooker extraordinaire. Agents discovered a recipe for cooking meth at his lab labeled ''RICO Legal Defense Fund.
Several other major clubs have sprung up to challenge the Angels. As the mob has done, they've carved the U.
The Angels control California, Alaska, pieces of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast. The Outlaws, the Avis of the biker world, own Florida and most of the Midwest. The Bandidos hold sway in Texas and parts of the Deep South, with scattered chapters in the Pacific Northwest. The Pagan's are primarily in the Middle Atlantic region. The Sons of Silence rule the Rockies and the Plains. Police there believe this gang may soon become the subject of a friendly Angel takeover.
Like so many businesses, the Angels are getting some of their best growth from abroad. They have chapters in 14 other countries, from Canada to Brazil to New Zealand.
Europe, a particularly hot market, has been developing its own biker subculture. Over the past two decades, scores of small, Harley-riding gangs have formed across the Continent.
Eurobikers try to give their clubs intimidating-sounding American names, though some have trouble with the vernacular. The Power Dead howl across the Alps. In Norway, Shabby Ones and Rabies scream down the cold, lonely roads. Denmark is graced with Mental Midgets and Bullshit. Interpol now counts 26 Hells Angels chapters in Europe, including 13 in Britain, and members.
That doesn't include four prospect chapters with over 40 members. Right now the Angels are building in Scandinavia. In Denmark, where they have two chapters and a prospect chapter, police report they run drugs from Holland, extort money from bars, intimidate witnesses, and monitor the police right back. Police say these European brothers stay in close contact with U.
Other European police reports show a pattern of criminal activity. Police believe Lutz fled to Brazil and has holed up in an apartment owned by Angels in Rio.
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Swiss authorities say Angels are also involved in prostitution and extortion. Zurich Angels have been convicted of murder, rape, and procuring explosives. In Holland, police are convinced the gang smuggles drugs, and last year linked a murder to it. Says Tait, who visited most of the European chapters: Though authorities still worry about the bikers, they have lately turned their attention to other problems such as crack.
The bikers have been able to lick their wounds and build membership. The prosecutions of the Eighties also toughened the gangs and left them more secretive.
The Angels will check you out thoroughly. They will get hold of your rap sheet and do a credit check'' to see if you're who you claim to be -- easy enough for an organization with their know-how. The gangs are also more mobile. For the Pagan's, that means finding counties or states where police are not yet versed in their ways. Many important members are now being released from jail.
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