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Is the Rock Machine rebuilding in Quebec?

MONTREAL – Police made a discovery in a warehouse north of Montreal that may suggest a resurgence of the Rock Machine biker gang, thought to have vanished from Quebec a decade ago.

Provincial police say they arrested two men and seized three jackets bearing Rock Machine colours and logos during a raid Saturday.

Rock Machine bikers were the sworn enemies of the Hells Angels and fought them in a war that saw 160 people killed in Eastern Canada between 1994 and 2002.

Successive police raids pushed the gang out of Quebec to the west, but Rock Machine members showed their colours a few times in downtown Montreal bars in 2011 and 2012.

Police won't say if the weekend operation is a sign the Rock Machine is rebuilding in Quebec. Sgt. Anne Mathieu would only say the arrests and seizure relate to a business dispute that resulted in death threats.

Yan Seguin, 25, of Montreal, faces a charge of uttering threats. Police are still looking for Joseph Fluet, 42, of nearby Laval, Que., on the same charge.

Most Rock Machine members joined their Hells Angels rivals when the Quebec war ended with massive police raids.

The defectors included Salvatore Cazzetta, who co-founded the Rock Machine in 1985, as well as Paul "Sasquatch" Porter, who later founded a Hells chapter in Ontario.

The rest of the Rock Machine's known full-patch members in Quebec were arrested in 2002 and sentenced to long prison terms.

The gang has since maintained a presence in Ontario, where six of its members were killed in an internal purge in 2007.

There's also a Rock Machine presence in Manitoba, where the RCMP dealt them a blow last year in Project Dilemma, an anti-drug operation that led to 11 arrests.