 Faucher had gained wide attention in underworld circles by blowing up the Hells Angels clubhouse in Quebec City in February 1997 and after the Rock Machine's leader Claude "Ti-Loup" Vézina was arrested for drug smuggling, he became the Rock Machine's new leader on 11 September 1997.Faucher decided the best hope for the Rock Machine was to have the club absorbed into the Bandidos, the second-largest outlaw biker club in the world.He invited George Wegers, the president of Bandidos USA, to visit Canada; however, a dinner that Faucher held for Wegers at an expensive Quebec City restaurant on 28 October 1997 ended in fiasco when the police arrived to announce that since Wegers had a lengthy criminal record in the United States, was not wanted in Canada, and they were there to escort him back to the airport to put him on the first flight back to the United States.