B.C. Hells Angel pleads guilty to illegal gaming charge

A long-time Hells Angel has pleaded guilty to illegal gaming and fined $10,000 after an investigation by B.C.’s anti-gang agency.

Francisco Batista Pires, of the Hells Angels’ elite Nomad chapter, appeared Wednesday in Vancouver provincial court and admitted guilt to a single count of providing gaming services without a licence.

On top of the fine, Judge Laura Bakan imposed a $1,500 victim surcharge levy on Pires.

A second charge of keeping a common gaming house was stayed against both Pires, 62, and his co-accused, Angelo Giuseppe Freda, 60.

The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit’s began an investigation in 2022 into allegations of illegal gaming at Pires’s Big Shots Café at 3980 East Hastings St. in Burnaby.

In July 2023, investigators searched the café. At the time, 10 people were arrested at Big Shots, while one was taken into custody at his home. Investigators seized four video lottery terminals, three of which were functioning and had money inside, as well as poker chips, ledgers, a gaming table, cards, other gambling paraphernalia, and $14,000 cash.

Last March, the B.C. Prosecution Service approved charges against both Pires, who lives in Vancouver, and Freda, of Burnaby.

CFSEU media spokesperson Sgt. Sarbjit Sangha said in a statement Thursday that “illegal gaming houses are often linked to organized crime and money laundering, creating real risks to public safety and community well-being.”

“This investigation demonstrates CFSEU-BC’s commitment to holding offenders accountable and disrupting the criminal networks that profit from illegal gaming,” she added.

In November 2020, Pires and three associates were charged with being “found in a common gaming or betting house” after an earlier CFSEU investigation into the same café that began in December 2019.

But the charges were stayed in October 2021. The director of civil forfeiture then filed a lawsuit against Pires and Richard Kosterman, the alleged gaming house manager, in April 2022, saying that almost $10,000 and “gaming supplies” seized during a July 2020 search should be forfeited as proceeds of crime. In 2023, some of the cash and equipment was forfeited by consent.

Corporate records indicate that Pires incorporated Big Shots on June 10, 2004, with another man. The second director was replaced by Pires’s fellow Hells Angel Rob Alvarez on Jan. 1, 2005, the records state. Alvarez ceased being a director on Jun 8, 2008, but continued to be listed with Pires on the Burnaby business licence.

An earlier drug trafficking conviction of Pires was cited in the long-running civil forfeiture case that resulted in three clubhouses being seized by the B.C. government two years ago. One ruling in the case noted that Pires and others had used the East End clubhouse for trafficking on three occasions.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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Bluesky: @kimbolan.bsky.social

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