Cocaine-smuggling B.C. Hells Angel denied parole
Jason Arkinstall was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in October 2022 after he tried to bring 90 kilograms of meth and 118 kilograms of cocaine into B.C. from Idaho
By Kim Bolan Vancouver Sun September 3, 2025
https://vancouversun.com/news/cocaine-smuggling-bc-hells-angel-denied-parole
A B.C. Hells Angel caught smuggling cocaine and methamphetamine into Canada has been denied parole in part because of his continued association with the biker gang behind bars.
Jason Arkinstall of the Mission City Hells Angels chapter told two parole board members that it wasn’t his fault that there were so many other bikers in his institution.
When asked at a recent parole board hearing about his continued negative associations, Arkinstall said it wasn’t his “decision to place six members of the same OMG (outlaw motorcycle gang)” in the prison, a board ruling denying his parole said.
The 51-year-old Hells Angel told the board that since being denied day parole in July 2024, he had made “a concerted effort to avoid OMG members,” although he added it was “difficult because you are in prison.”
Parole board members Ian Mackenzie and David Hunt noted Arkinstall remains a member of the Hells Angels, referred only generically in the ruling as an OMG.
And they referenced an instance where Arkinstall was “involved in trying to have a party in the gym with other OMG members” in the federal institution, which isn’t named in the document.
“At your hearing you claimed there are no institutional rules against this, which to some extent misses the point about concerns about your continued association with those involved with a security threat group,” the ruling said.
“When you were asked questions about your associates, the board found that you minimized and have limited insight into the risk-related aspects of such associations.”
Arkinstall was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in October 2022 after he tried to bring 90 kilograms of meth and 118 kilograms of cocaine into B.C. from Idaho on Oct. 23, 2020.
U.S. border agents spotted Arkinstall and a friend near the border with five duffel bags full of drugs. The two men fled but were later arrested on the Canadian side of the border.
He pleaded guilty in September 2021 to importing the illicit substances.
Arkinstall’s lawyer, who was unidentified in the board ruling, said, in a letter filed on his behalf, that his client had “gained insight and awareness into how to approach different situations.”
The lawyer also suggested “concerns regarding negative associations and subculture involvement are vague.”
“Your lawyer submits you do not present an undue risk to society and your release will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating your reintegration,” the board decision said.
Mackenzie and Hunt asked Arkinstall about his 2013 arrest in Spain. Postmedia News earlier reported that he and fellow B.C. Hells Angel Chad Wilson were arrested after they tried to smuggle half-a-tonne of cocaine into the country aboard a boat that had sailed from Colombia.
Both later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and were sent back to Canada. Wilson was shot to death under the Golden Ears Bridge in 2018.
“You denied that the offences for which you were arrested were related to the OMG,” Mackenzie and Hunt noted. “You said that you have been involved in the OMG for 17 years and that you enjoy the activities you engage in with other club members. You denied that you or any other OMG members commit crimes on behalf of the OMG but admitted that some OMG members, including you, have committed crimes. You insisted the criminal activity was conducted by the person at an individual level and not on behalf of, or to profit, the OMG.”
The parole board members credited Arkinstall with making some progress in his rehabilitation but said his release would pose an “undue risk” to society.
“The nature and severity of the index offence was serious, you have a fairly extensive criminal history that includes a history of drug-related offences, you lack insight into the risk factor of associates,” they said.
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