HUNTER: Hells Angels poohbah who had Playboy gal pal pinched in Mexico

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South of the Rio Grande is the place criminals go to die.

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Sometimes it’s a figurative death, meaning you’ve been busted by the Federales, other times the death is quite literal. Just ask Hamilton hitman Michael Cudmore and Bolton mobster Daniele Ranieri, both rubbed out under the hot Mexican sun.

Now, reputed Hells Angels big wheel and international fugitive Robert Skojo — alias “El Rob” — has been arrested in Benito Juárez, Quintana Roo.

Skojo was a ‘high-priority target’

Described as a “high-priority target” for Canadian law enforcement, Skojo allegedly served as the Angels’ logistics guru in their transnational criminal operations. Mexican media claimed Skojo was one of the Angels’ leading lights.

Over the past decade, the motorcycle fellowship developed deep ties with the violent Mexican drug cartels. Cops claim the gang’s organizational structure was used to facilitate “international cocaine trafficking, firearms smuggling, extortion, and organized crime on a global scale.”

Skojo was convicted by Canadian courts in absentia for drug trafficking conspiracy and that old northern nugget that is a rite of passage for our criminals, “breaching court orders by failing to appear in court.”

According to cops, Skojo was nabbed following an intelligence swap with the RCMP. Three properties in Cancun were raided in conjunction with the probe.

Skojo had Interpol Red Notice

The Toronto native — in his mid-50s — was “arrested pursuant to a warrant for formal extradition and is the subject of an active ‘Red Notice'” issued by Interpol.

The fallen Angel had been wanted by cops since 2010 and was arrested on Oct. 21 in Cancun’s swinging Hotel Zone. According to the Latin Times, it was the second arrest in 2026 of a Canadian Hells Angel in Cancun. His predecessor, Denis “Menace” Ivziku was also allegedly a big player for the gang. He too carried a Red Notice and faces charges stemming from a four-year international investigation into drug and firearms trafficking into Manitoba.

Skojo was previously pinched in 1995 in a $20 million mob-related cocaine bust. It isn’t known what the outcome of those charges were.

Our hero was back in the news in October 2013 when he was arrested after his Playboy model gal pal, Colleen Shannon, attempted to smuggle the convicted cocaine trafficker through Akwesasne and into the U.S.

Playboy playmate was criminal’s gal pal

Shannon — the 2004 Playmate of the Year and self-described “World’s Sexiest DJ” — was driving Skojo’s Bentley sedan valued at $90,000. U.S. Border Patrol agents seized the vehicle along with $18,700 in cash, a necklace valued at $125,000 and a $37,000 watch. The items were the Hells Angel’s.

As for Shannon, she was charged with human smuggling. She was convicted and sentenced to four months in jail for aiding the convicted cocaine trafficker’s escape in the U.S.

“This case is not, in fact, a purely innocuous story of a boyfriend and girlfriend who were divided by an international boundary,” wrote U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian, in his sentencing submission to the court. “It is the story of a convicted narcotics trafficker whose girlfriend engaged in complex machinations to facilitate his entry into and transport within the United States, including by lying to border patrol agents and driving the defendant’s vehicle over the border while he entered unlawfully.”

The good news for Skojo is he’s still alive

Skojo earned six months in federal prison for that caper and was fined $1,000.

And now, far from those heady days of dating Playboy models and driving Bentleys, Skojo sits in a Mexican jail.

The only upshot for him was that he wasn’t turned into a greasespot on the Cancun pavement by his criminal confreres. That’s about the only good news for him.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun

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