Zavisa Drecic, 45, of Buchner Road, was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday in a Toronto courtroom.

Zavisa Drecic, a former member of the Niagara Hells Angels, had been transferred to the Woodbridge chapter of the gang when he was swept up in a provincewide police crackdown in 2007. Zavisa Drecic, 45, of Buchner Road, was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday in a Toronto courtroom. He was credited a year for pretrial custody and restricted bail conditions. Project Develop was an OPP-led investigation into the gang that used one of its members as an informant. Drecic was one of 31 people arrested in pre-dawn raids on April 4, 2007, in Ontario, British Columbia and New Brunswick. He spent 30 months under house arrest at his Welland home. Drecic, who facilitated drug transactions through a third party, pleaded guilty to three counts of trafficking illegal substances, but not guilty to trafficking in association with a criminal organization. He was found guilty of the criminal association charge earlier this month. Prosecutor Tanit Gilliam said Drecic brokered a $500 deal via a third party on May 16, 2006, for 279 grams of gamma hydroxybutyrate acid (GHB), commonly referred to as the date-rape drug. On May 25, 2006,, he facilitated the sale of 136 litres of GHB for $25,000. On Sept. 22, 2006, he sold a kilogram of cocaine for $29,500 and one kilogram of ephedrine for $1,500. He also sold a kilogram of cocaine on Feb. 1, 2007, for $36,000. Two other locals arrested during Project Develop have already been through the courts. Kevin Skuta of Welland was sentenced in May to five years and nine months in jail after pleading guilty to trafficking more than 100 litres of GHB and trafficking a kilogram of cocaine.

last original member of the Niagara Hells Angels was charged with illegally importing vehicles from the United States.

last original member of the Niagara Hells Angels was charged with illegally importing vehicles from the United States. A five-month investigation by a joint forces police auto theft team led to the seizure of five vehicles and 12 charges against Timothy Panetta of Wainfleet. The 39-year-old owns Advantage Auto Sales and Leasing on Allanport Road in Thorold, which was searched by police last month.
A police source from the auto theft team alleged salvage vehicles were purchased in the U.S. and imported into Canada. “They are being fraudulently registered with their true identities hidden and then sold to the public,” the detective said.
The vehicles included two Chevrolet Suburbans and a Porsche Carrera. One of the five vehicles contained stolen parts. Police aren’t saying where the vehicles originated or their histories. Typically, when a vehicle is fraudulently registered, its flaws are hidden in documentation to increase its sales value. Two of the vehicles had been sold, while three were for sale, police said. The auto team, spearheaded by the OPP, were assisted by the biker enforcement unit and provincial organized crime enforcement team. Panetta joined the Hells Angels in 2001, not long after a massive takeover of nearly all of Ontario’s native biker groups by the gang. While gangs around the province abandoned their own colours and adopted the grinning death’s head patch of the Hells Angels, Niagara was a special case.