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Rock Machine

Rock Machine
Rock machine mc.jpg
Founded 1986
Founding location Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Years active 1980s–to present
Territory Canada, United States, Australia, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Armenia, Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, England
Membership Unknown - Estimated to have over 1,000 active members across the globe
Criminal activities Drug trafficking, arms dealing, extortion, prostitution, money laundering, Armed robbery, Murder, assault, Kidnapping
Allies Outlaws Motorcycle Club
Rivals Hells Angels (1986-2002)

Rock Machine, or Rock Machine M.C., is an international outlaw motorcycle club with six Canadian chapters, six US chapters and eight chapters in Australia. It was formed in 1986 by Salvatore Cazzetta, a former friend of Hells Angels Quebec chapter president Maurice Boucher, and competed with the Hells Angels for the street-level drug trade in Montreal. The Quebec Biker war saw Rock Machine form an alliance with a number of other gangs. The conflict occurred between 1994 and 2002 and resulted in over 160 casualties and an unknown number of injuries.

When the Rock Machine became a probationary chapter of the Bandidos motorcycle club in December 2000, after being an official hangaround club for eighteen months, Bandidos national officer Edward Winterhalder was put in charge of overseeing the transition by Bandidos international president George Wegers. The original version of the Rock Machine (1986 to 1999) in Canada changed their colors from black and silver to red and gold in May 1999; their colors remained red and gold until they became Bandidos in December 2000.

After the few remaining Bandidos members in Canada quit the organization and Bandidos Canada was dissolved, ex-members of the Mongols and the Bandidos reformed the Rock Machine in 2007, adopting the original black and silver colors as their patch. As of 2008, the latest incarnation of Rock Machine claims to be a club of motorcycle enthusiasts that is not involved in criminal activity.

In approximately 1982, Salvatore Cazzetta was a member of the "SS", a white supremacist motorcycle gang based in Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the eastern tip of the Island of Montreal. Fellow SS member Maurice Boucher became friends with Cazzetta and, as leaders of the gang, the pair became candidates to join the Hells Angels when the gang expanded into Canada.


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