A former Ontario Provincial Police cop who infiltrated outlaw motorcycle gangs has dismissed a claim that B.C. is on the verge of a biker war.

Bob Deasy, author of Being Uncle Charlie: A Life Undercover With Killers, Kingpins, Bikers and Druglords (Random House Canada), told the Georgia Straight that there’s a lot of “puffing of chests” about the Outlaws taking on the Hells Angels.

But he said that it’s very unlikely to occur in this province, which has long been a stronghold for the Angels.

“I think they’ve been nattering at each other since the day they were invented,” Deasy said in an interview at the Straight office.

He made the comment in response to a 2013 book called Charlie and the Angels: The Outlaws, the Hells Angels and the Sixty Years War.

Its author, former police informant Alex Caine, told the Straight last year that the Lower Mainland was on the verge of a bloodbath between the Hells Angels and the Outlaws, which originated in the U.S. Midwest.

Caine maintained at the time that the Outlaws would rely on the assistance of the Bandidos and the Black Pistons, whom he described as “storm troopers”.

Deasy said that this made for a “great story”, but he openly scoffed at its validity.

In his book, Deasy describes how he went undercover to meet then-leader Billy Scarf in the Outlaws’ Ottawa clubhouse. Deasy noticed two or three working police scanners in a cubbyhole.

“Above the scanners I saw something that made my blood run cold: Scarf had a list of all six of the members of the Kingston drug unit, and five of them showed their name, make of car and licence plate number,” Deasy writes. “All of them were buddies of mine. It was only because I was new to the region that number six was blank—just waiting for my name to be filled in.”

He said that in recent years, Canadian police forces have made real progress against outlaw motorcycle gangs.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the police utilizing technology and sharing information,” Deasy stated.