Things you associate with the Hells Angels. Bar room brawls. Drug trafficking. Armed robbery. Working for the Iranians. Beating cosplaying dentists with 1% patches. And, of course, car shows...
What you don't associate the Hells Angels with. White collar stock fraud. Yet, that's exactly what the U.S. FBI is charging two Canadian members of the club with as the agency asks to extradite them to the US to stand trial.
Two members of the club, Courtney "Court" Vasseur, and Curtis Lehner, are at the center of the indictment, though that occurred two years ago in the spring of 2022. At the time, the FBI alleged that Vasseur and Lehner, along with two others, had been part of a $35 million pump-and-dump stock scheme.
They had extradition hearings in 2023 and were ordered to be sent to the US to stand trial. But the men appealed and are awaiting their appeals trials at present.
According to the Aldergrove Star, a weekly newspaper in Aldergrove, British Columbia, "Vasseur, Lehner, and two other men, Canadian Domenic Calabrigo who was living in the Bahamas, and German-Turkish citizen Hasan Sario, were all accused of a number of crimes including conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, multiple counts of securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the United States, following an FBI investigation. The alleged frauds took place between 2013 and 2018. Some of the charges carry a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in prison."
As for white-collar links, the newspaper does a great job laying out the case against the two, linking Vassaur and Lehner to multiple other fraudulent cases, including Lehner who was a senior executive at the British Columbia firm Eron Mortgage Corporation. Though Lehner wasn't charged, the company's former president and vice-president pleaded guilty to defrauding 3,200 investors "out of $170 million."
Again, while it's not unheard of that the MC would commit fraud, it's usually defrauding insurance agencies and others. It's also just funny to think about a burly club member wearing a full cut in the bullpen of the US Stock Exchange, but committing Gordon Gecko-style fraud.
But hey, we all need to diversify our portfolios.
