Rock Machine
Encyclopedia
Rock Machine, or The Rock Machine M.C., is an outlaw motorcycle gang with six Canadian
chapters, six United States
chapters and eight chapters in Australia
. Formed in 1986 by Salvatore Cazzetta, a former friend of Hells Angels
Quebec chapter president Maurice Boucher
, the Rock Machine competed with the Hells Angels for the street-level drug trade in Montreal. The Quebec Biker war
would see them and a number of other gangs form an alliance, to fight a seven year conflict, which left over 160 people dead and countless injured, from 1994 to 2002.
Heavily outnumbered, the Rock Machine became a probationary chapter of the Bandidos
Motorcycle Club in January 2000. In 2007, the Rock Machine broke away from the Bandidos to become independent again. The "new" Rock Machine claims to be a club of motorcycle enthusiasts frowning upon criminal behaviour.
, on the eastern tip of the Island of Montreal
. A fellow member of the SS was Maurice Boucher, and the two became friends. As leaders of the gang, they became candidates to join the Hells Angels when that gang decided to expand its international operations into Canada.
In March 1985, a Lennoxville, Quebec
chapter of the Hells suspected the Laval
chapter of wasting drug profits by using too much of the product themselves. The Laval chapter was invited to a Lennoxville chapter party. When the five Laval members arrived, they were ambushed and murdered. Two months later, at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River, divers located the decomposing bodies of the victims wrapped in sleeping bags and tied to weightlifting plates.
What became known as the Lennoxville massacre
was considered extreme even for the criminal underworld and gave the Quebec's Hells Angels a notorious reputation. Cazzetta found the event an unforgivable breach of the outlaw code and, rather than join the Hells, formed his own, smaller gang, the Rock Machine, in 1986 with his brother Giovanni.
Fred Faucher, future leader of Rock Machine, would later say, "Sal once told me, 'Those guys, they operate their club in such a way that I didn't want to join them'". Unlike the Hells, the members of the Rock Machine chose not to wear leather vests that could easily identify members, but rather wore rings with the insignia of an eagle. The Rock Machines official club motto is: A La Vie A La Mort (As We Live As We Die).
Boucher did not share Cazzetta's concerns and after finishing a 40-month sentence for armed sexual assault later that year he joined the Hells and began to rise through the ranks. For years, the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine co-existed peacefully. Police officials believe this was due to Boucher's respect for Cazzetta, who had connections to the Quebec Mafia, the only organized crime group that the bikers were unwilling to attack.
Quebec Biker war
In 1994, Cazzetta was arrested at a pitbull farm for attempting to import eleven tons of cocaine. The recently-promoted Hells Montreal president Boucher began to increase pressure on the Rock Machine shortly after the arrest initiating the Quebec Biker war
. The much smaller gang Rock Machine formed an affiliation, "the Alliance", with Montreal crime families such as the Pelletier clan and other independent dealers who wished to resist the Hells' attempts to establish a monopoly on street-level drug trade in the city. A violent turf war ensued with the Hells Angels.
Boucher organized "puppet clubs" to persuade Rock Machine controlled bars and their resident drug dealers to surrender their illegal drug business. Rock Machine resistance led to bloodshed. On July 14, 1994, two members of the Hells Angels' top puppet club entered a downtown motorcycle shop and shot down a Rock Machine associate. "That was the beginning of the war," Ouellette said.
That August, a Jeep wired with a remote-controlled bomb exploded killing a Rock Machine associate and an 11-year-old boy, Daniel Desrochers, who was playing in a nearby schoolyard. A month later, the first full Hells Angels member was shot to death entering his car at a shopping mall. Nine bombs went off around the province during his funeral."
It was this turf war that prompted the Rock Machine to align itself with the Bandidos
motorcycle club from Texas.Ten individuals allegedly flaunting Rock Machine colours were spotted in a downtown Montreal strip club on Thursday July 21st 2011. The choice to show off in Montreal’s Chez Paree strip club is symbolic.One of the Rock Machine’s leaders was savagely beaten 10 years ago at the club by people tied to the Hells.
), which would claim the lives of eight prominent Bandidos members at a farm house in Shedden, Ontario, the Bandidos Canada would finally close its doors officially in October 2007 after a brief but pointless struggle by remaining members to stay open and remain Bandidos. Infighting, lack of support by the United States and European Bandidos, and the Canadian members' suspicions about their US counterparts' involvement in the murders in Shedden caused its closure, thus ending any hope of Bandido dominance in Canada.
The Rock Machine would again reopen early in April 2008, when several angry and disgruntled members of the now defunct Bandidos Canada "No Surrender Crew" would come together again to re-organize the club with a brand new look on old design calling themselves the Rock Machine Canada Nomads. What would start as an intended insult by resurrecting the Rock Machine name towards the United States Bandidos national chapter and in particular the Bandidos National President Jeffrey Pike quickly gained unexpected momentum spreading across Canada and over several countries including the United States and Australia.
The newly reformed Rock Machine has a well-known and documented hatred towards the Texas-based Bandidos national chapter. It would be very unlikely that the Rock Machine would ever return to the Bandidos ranks despite rumors mostly perpetuated by the book "The Fat Mexican" by author Alex Caine.
Caine claims that members of the Rock Machine made a secret deal in a hotel room meeting in London Ontario in 2008 with high ranking members of the Bandidos national chapter to re-open again in Canada. Caine gives unusually great details of this meeting in his book.
Members of the Rock Machine adamantly deny ever happened and call Caine a fraud and an attention-seeker. The club also claims that it now dismisses members who are involved in any known crimes or criminal activity.
In 2000, the Rock Machine was absorbed into the Bandidos motorcycle club in a patch-over ceremony and would remain Bandidos for 7 more years with the Rock Machine club reforming early in 2008. Many Rock Machine members back then joined their former archenemy, the Hells Angels, when the Bandidos refused to immediately grant full status to many of the more junior patched members of the Rock Machine.
Some high-profile members to defect to the Angels included Paul Porter, Nelson Fernandes and Bruce Doran. These three joined the Nomads chapter of the Quebec Hells Angels. However, Fernandes died of cancer within months of becoming a Hells Angel, and Doran turned in his colours and returned to private life, but some members of the law enforcement community believe he is still very active and merely using his resignation as a cover to continue his involvement without the scrutiny of police.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
chapters, six United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
chapters and eight chapters in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Formed in 1986 by Salvatore Cazzetta, a former friend of Hells Angels
Hells Angels
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is a worldwide one-percenter motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation. Their primary motto...
Quebec chapter president Maurice Boucher
Maurice Boucher
Maurice "Mom" Boucher is a convicted murderer, reputed drug trafficker, and outlaw biker—the former President of the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter. Boucher led Montreal's Hells Angels against the rival Rock Machine biker gang during The Quebec Biker War of 1994 through 2002 in Quebec, Canada...
, the Rock Machine competed with the Hells Angels for the street-level drug trade in Montreal. The Quebec Biker war
Quebec Biker war
The Quebec Biker war refers to the violent turf war that began in 1994 and continued until late 2002 in Quebec, Canada.The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in the province. A number of drug dealers and crime families...
would see them and a number of other gangs form an alliance, to fight a seven year conflict, which left over 160 people dead and countless injured, from 1994 to 2002.
Heavily outnumbered, the Rock Machine became a probationary chapter of the Bandidos
Bandidos
The Bandidos Motorcycle Club, also known as the Bandido Nation, is a "one-percenter" motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate with a worldwide membership. The club was formed in 1966 by Don Chambers in Texas. Its slogan is We are the people our parents warned us about. It is estimated to have...
Motorcycle Club in January 2000. In 2007, the Rock Machine broke away from the Bandidos to become independent again. The "new" Rock Machine claims to be a club of motorcycle enthusiasts frowning upon criminal behaviour.
Early history
Around 1982, Salvatore Cazzetta was a member of a white-supremacist motorcycle gang named the SS, who were based in Pointe-aux-TremblesPointe-aux-Trembles
Pointe-aux-Trembles was a municipality, founded in 1674, that was annexed by Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1982. This was the last city to be merged into Montreal until the 2002 municipal reorganization of districts and municipalities as boroughs....
, on the eastern tip of the Island of Montreal
Island of Montreal
The Island of Montreal , in extreme southwestern Quebec, Canada, is located at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. It is separated from Île Jésus by the Rivière des Prairies....
. A fellow member of the SS was Maurice Boucher, and the two became friends. As leaders of the gang, they became candidates to join the Hells Angels when that gang decided to expand its international operations into Canada.
In March 1985, a Lennoxville, Quebec
Lennoxville, Quebec
Lennoxville is an arrondissement, or borough, of the city of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Lennoxville is located at the confluence of the St. Francis and Massawippi Rivers approximately five kilometers south of downtown Sherbrooke....
chapter of the Hells suspected the Laval
Laval, Quebec
Laval is a Canadian city and a region in southwestern Quebec. It is the largest suburb of Montreal, the third largest municipality in the province of Quebec, and the 14th largest city in Canada with a population of 368,709 in 2006...
chapter of wasting drug profits by using too much of the product themselves. The Laval chapter was invited to a Lennoxville chapter party. When the five Laval members arrived, they were ambushed and murdered. Two months later, at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River, divers located the decomposing bodies of the victims wrapped in sleeping bags and tied to weightlifting plates.
What became known as the Lennoxville massacre
Lennoxville massacre
The Lennoxville massacre, or Lennoxville purge, was a mass murder which took place at the Hells Angels clubhouse in Lennoxville, Quebec on March 24, 1985. The killings were used to liquidate the Hells Angels North Chapter, founded by Yves "Apache" Trudeau...
was considered extreme even for the criminal underworld and gave the Quebec's Hells Angels a notorious reputation. Cazzetta found the event an unforgivable breach of the outlaw code and, rather than join the Hells, formed his own, smaller gang, the Rock Machine, in 1986 with his brother Giovanni.
Fred Faucher, future leader of Rock Machine, would later say, "Sal once told me, 'Those guys, they operate their club in such a way that I didn't want to join them'". Unlike the Hells, the members of the Rock Machine chose not to wear leather vests that could easily identify members, but rather wore rings with the insignia of an eagle. The Rock Machines official club motto is: A La Vie A La Mort (As We Live As We Die).
Boucher did not share Cazzetta's concerns and after finishing a 40-month sentence for armed sexual assault later that year he joined the Hells and began to rise through the ranks. For years, the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine co-existed peacefully. Police officials believe this was due to Boucher's respect for Cazzetta, who had connections to the Quebec Mafia, the only organized crime group that the bikers were unwilling to attack.
Quebec Biker warQuebec Biker warThe Quebec Biker war refers to the violent turf war that began in 1994 and continued until late 2002 in Quebec, Canada.The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in the province. A number of drug dealers and crime families...
In 1994, Cazzetta was arrested at a pitbull farm for attempting to import eleven tons of cocaine. The recently-promoted Hells Montreal president Boucher began to increase pressure on the Rock Machine shortly after the arrest initiating the Quebec Biker warQuebec Biker war
The Quebec Biker war refers to the violent turf war that began in 1994 and continued until late 2002 in Quebec, Canada.The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in the province. A number of drug dealers and crime families...
. The much smaller gang Rock Machine formed an affiliation, "the Alliance", with Montreal crime families such as the Pelletier clan and other independent dealers who wished to resist the Hells' attempts to establish a monopoly on street-level drug trade in the city. A violent turf war ensued with the Hells Angels.
Boucher organized "puppet clubs" to persuade Rock Machine controlled bars and their resident drug dealers to surrender their illegal drug business. Rock Machine resistance led to bloodshed. On July 14, 1994, two members of the Hells Angels' top puppet club entered a downtown motorcycle shop and shot down a Rock Machine associate. "That was the beginning of the war," Ouellette said.
That August, a Jeep wired with a remote-controlled bomb exploded killing a Rock Machine associate and an 11-year-old boy, Daniel Desrochers, who was playing in a nearby schoolyard. A month later, the first full Hells Angels member was shot to death entering his car at a shopping mall. Nine bombs went off around the province during his funeral."
It was this turf war that prompted the Rock Machine to align itself with the Bandidos
Bandidos
The Bandidos Motorcycle Club, also known as the Bandido Nation, is a "one-percenter" motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate with a worldwide membership. The club was formed in 1966 by Don Chambers in Texas. Its slogan is We are the people our parents warned us about. It is estimated to have...
motorcycle club from Texas.Ten individuals allegedly flaunting Rock Machine colours were spotted in a downtown Montreal strip club on Thursday July 21st 2011. The choice to show off in Montreal’s Chez Paree strip club is symbolic.One of the Rock Machine’s leaders was savagely beaten 10 years ago at the club by people tied to the Hells.
Break from Bandidos
After the 2006 Bandido massacre (the Shedden massacreShedden massacre
The Shedden Massacre involved the killing of eight men, whose bodies were found in a farmer's field five kilometres north of Shedden, a hamlet in the Canadian province of Ontario, on April 8, 2006. Four vehicles, with the bodies inside, were first discovered by a farmer...
), which would claim the lives of eight prominent Bandidos members at a farm house in Shedden, Ontario, the Bandidos Canada would finally close its doors officially in October 2007 after a brief but pointless struggle by remaining members to stay open and remain Bandidos. Infighting, lack of support by the United States and European Bandidos, and the Canadian members' suspicions about their US counterparts' involvement in the murders in Shedden caused its closure, thus ending any hope of Bandido dominance in Canada.
The Rock Machine would again reopen early in April 2008, when several angry and disgruntled members of the now defunct Bandidos Canada "No Surrender Crew" would come together again to re-organize the club with a brand new look on old design calling themselves the Rock Machine Canada Nomads. What would start as an intended insult by resurrecting the Rock Machine name towards the United States Bandidos national chapter and in particular the Bandidos National President Jeffrey Pike quickly gained unexpected momentum spreading across Canada and over several countries including the United States and Australia.
The newly reformed Rock Machine has a well-known and documented hatred towards the Texas-based Bandidos national chapter. It would be very unlikely that the Rock Machine would ever return to the Bandidos ranks despite rumors mostly perpetuated by the book "The Fat Mexican" by author Alex Caine.
Caine claims that members of the Rock Machine made a secret deal in a hotel room meeting in London Ontario in 2008 with high ranking members of the Bandidos national chapter to re-open again in Canada. Caine gives unusually great details of this meeting in his book.
Members of the Rock Machine adamantly deny ever happened and call Caine a fraud and an attention-seeker. The club also claims that it now dismisses members who are involved in any known crimes or criminal activity.
Members
Well-known former members of the Rock Machine included Peter Paradis (who later testified for the Crown at the trials of other members), Richard "Bam-Bam" Lagacé (deceased), Johnny Plescio (deceased), Tony Plescio (deceased), Renaud Jomphe (deceased), Frederic Faucher, Alain Brunette, Bruce Doran (an ex-convict from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario instrumental in establishing the Kingston, Ontario chapter), and Paul Porter (who later joined Hells Angels).In 2000, the Rock Machine was absorbed into the Bandidos motorcycle club in a patch-over ceremony and would remain Bandidos for 7 more years with the Rock Machine club reforming early in 2008. Many Rock Machine members back then joined their former archenemy, the Hells Angels, when the Bandidos refused to immediately grant full status to many of the more junior patched members of the Rock Machine.
Some high-profile members to defect to the Angels included Paul Porter, Nelson Fernandes and Bruce Doran. These three joined the Nomads chapter of the Quebec Hells Angels. However, Fernandes died of cancer within months of becoming a Hells Angel, and Doran turned in his colours and returned to private life, but some members of the law enforcement community believe he is still very active and merely using his resignation as a cover to continue his involvement without the scrutiny of police.
Further reading
- Out In Bad Standings: Inside The Bandidos Motorcycle Club; The Making Of A Worldwide Dynasty by Edward WinterhalderEdward WinterhalderEdward Winterhalder is an American author, television producer and entrepreneur who has written seven books about outlaw motorcycle clubs and the Harley-Davidson biker lifestyle.-Early life:...
, published in 2005 by Blockhead City Press Owasso Oklahoma - The Assimilation: Rock Machine Become Bandidos - Bikers United Against The Hells Angels by Edward Winterhalder and Wil De Clercq, published in 2008 by ECW Press Toronto, Ontario Canada.