After the arrest of Vézina, Frédéric Faucher became the Rock Machine's new national president on 11 September 1997, Alain "Red Tomato" Brunette was promoted to president of the Quebec City chapter. At the same, the Great Nordic Biker War was taking place, and the Rock Machine was impressed with the way that the Scandinavian branches of the Bandidos held their own against the Scandinavian branches of the Hells Angels. In June 1997, the three leaders of the Rock Machine, Fred Faucher, Johnny Plescio, and Robert "Tout Tout" Léger, went to Stockholm to seek support from the Swedish branch of the Bandidos, but were expelled by the Swedish police, who declared that they did not want Canadian bikers in their country. 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 in a bid to "internationalize" the conflict. 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 that he 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. A former Rock Machine member, Normand Brisebois, stated in an interview: "The Hells Angels were ten times more powerful and organized than us." Another former Rock Machine member, Gilles Lalonde stated: "The Rock Machine were more like just drug dealers. They weren't much of an organzied clb. The Hells Angels were more like a big business". There was a widespread belief within the Rock Machine that joining the Bandidos was their only hope to win the biker war. Two members of the Angels who came into conflict with Boucher were Steinert and Donald Magnussen. David "Wolf" Carroll, one of the Nomads, charged that the two were working for the police, noting that the Crown was completely unsuccessful in its efforts