COPENHAGEN, Aug. 11 -- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation plans to set up an office in the Danish capital to help put an end to a deadly war among motorcycle gangs in the Nordic region, the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reported Saturday. The move comes in response to the continued escalation of a deadly feud between the heavily armed Hells Angels and Banditos gangs.
Three gang members have been killed and seven seriously wounded since March in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland in attacks using machine guns, hand grenades, anti-tank weapons and explosives. The announcement came following meetings in Washington this week among Danish Justice Minister Bjoern Westh, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh. An FBI office with a staff of two or three agents will be opened in Copenhagen at Denmark's request early next year if the U.S. Congress appropriates the funds, Politiken said. Both Hells Angels and Banditos are based in United States, but they have strong organizations or chapters in the Nordic area and other European countries. 'We know there is cooperation, but we cannot prove that the Danish organizations are controlled from the U.S.,' Westh said. 'The Americans say we should go after the money transactions and the leaders. ' Westh said that FBI agents would not be allowed, according to Danish law, to infiltrate the gangs to acquire information as is it is done in the United States. 'Denmark is too small a country for that sort of thing. Everybody knows everybody else,' he said. Police have stepped up and intensified their surveillance of the gangs, but the reprisal attacks have continued with increasing violence and danger to the public. Besides combating criminal motorcycle gangs, the FBI office in Copenhagen also would help theNordic countries fight international terrorism and cross-border crime.
