On 2 June 1999, the Annihilators Motorcycle Club based in St. Thomas led by Kellestine joined the Loners club based in Richmond Hill led by Gennaro "Jimmy" Raso. In face of the challenge from the Hells Angels, Kellestine decided he needed allies, and with the Outlaws being unwilling to accept him, he had decided to merge with the Loners instead. Kellestine, the Annihilators president, became the new president of the Chatham chapter of the Loners at the time of the merger in 1999. Following Kellestine into the Loners was another Annihilator, Giovanni Muscedere. The Loners had been founded in 1984 in York Region by Francesco "Ciso" Lenti, an outlaw biker active since the 1970s who had belonged to numerous clubs over the years. Lenti designed the "rather elaborate and bizarre" patch for his club featuring a half-werewolf, a half-horned skull creature. Subsequently, Lenti was expelled from his own club in 1995 for stealing. He founded a new club, the Diablos, that lost a biker war in 1995 against the Loners. On 25 August 1995, Lenti was badly wounded by a bomb planted in his car by the Loners, which gave him the unflattering epithet of "the half-assed biker" as he lost one of his buttocks. The Loners had chapters in Toronto, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Windsor, and London. Unusually for a Canadian outlaw biker club, the Loners had chapters abroad with one in Portugal and seven in Italy, having chapters in Naples, Messina, Salerno, Reggio Calabria, Brolo, Avellino and Isernia.