Another wanted gangster arrested in massive RCMP sting

December 14th, 2007 · No Comments

(Vancouver Sun) - The RCMP have arrested a wanted gangster in Vancouver and seized a sizeable arsenal of weapons, including Tasers and a pipe bomb from a Kelowna home, the RCMP said today.

Police searched the Kelowna home of Donald Bryce Lyons, 34, a member of the Independent Soldiers Organization, Wednesday and found a total of 19 weapons, including 15 handguns, two assault rifles, a shotgun and an Uzi-type, hand-held, fully automatic pistol, along with two Tasers and fourteen Taser cartridges.

“The majority of these weapons were easily accessible within the home and fully loaded,” said Kelowna RCMP Sgt. Terry McLachlan.

A 30-year-old woman, her two-year-old son and a 29-year-old man were in the residence at the time of the search, he said.

Police arrested Lyons in Vancouver and he was charged with multiple drug offences.

The Soldiers is a puppet gang of the Hells Angels in B.C.

Lyons’ arrest follows that of another Kelowna gangster earlier Wednesday, 35-year-old Lester Robert Jones, a member of the Kelowna Hells Angels. The RCMP Explosive Disposal Unit also was called to the home when officers found a homemade pipe bomb.

“The pipe bomb was located in a hidden floor safe in the garage of the residence,” McLachlan said. “There was no immediate danger to any of the residents in the area because of where the (pipe bomb) was being stored at the time of the search.”

Police also searched a 2007 Cadillac Escalade and discovered a professionally installed, secret hydraulic compartment in the car that concealed “approximately five small, single-shot handguns.”

Charges are pending against the 29-year-old male at the residence and one other male.

Lyons was arrested Wednesday night in Vancouver, while Jones was arrested at his home in Kelowna.

Their arrests bring to 20 the total number of people from across Canada arrested on Wednesday as part of an investigation started in November 2006 by the Manitoba Integrated Organized Crime Task Force, code-named Project Drill.

Earlier on Wednesday, police conducted eight raids across Manitoba and one in Ontario, in which they seized 11 kilograms of cocaine, 2,000 methamphetamine tables and five kilograms of marijuana, along with five machine pistols and three handguns illegally imported from the U.S. to Canada.