news Hells Angels dealt significant blow in Quebec; 150-plus arrests, bunkers seized

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Hells Angels dealt significant blow in Quebec; 150-plus arrests, bunkers seized


Wed Apr 15, 5:26 PM





By Tobi Cohen, The Canadian Press



MONTREAL - The Hells Angels were dealt a significant blow Wednesday after police in Quebec, New Brunswick, the Dominican Republic and France arrested more than 150 full-patch members and associates in a massive sweep.


Operation Sharqc targeted the biker gang's leadership and experts say it will most certainly affect street-level drug trafficking in Quebec, where the investigation was centred.


"The people in Quebec have really a great reason to laud their police because Quebec is the only jurisdiction in the world right now where law enforcement has persisted 24 hours a day over more than a decade now to try and shut down the Hells Angels and their drug network," said Toronto author Yves Lavigne, who's penned several books on the notorious biker gang.


"This will severely hurt their income and severely hurt their ability to supply the street gangs that sell their drugs for them."


While many have compared Wednesday's bust to a similar one in spring 2001 in which 122 Hells Angels members and sympathizers were arrested, Lavigne said this one is particularly significant as it yielded a number of gang leaders.


It also targeted individuals in the Dominican Republic - an important point along the pipeline that carries drugs from Colombia to Canada, he said.


Michel Auger, a former newspaper crime reporter who survived a biker hit several years ago, agreed.


"The 2001 (operation) was a small, small celebration if you compare it to today," he said, noting that operation targeted the Nomad chapter and those responsible for the violence linked to the biker wars of the 1990s.


"As for today, the whole of the Hells Angels organization was targeted by the police forces."


More than 1,200 police officers from about 20 municipal, provincial and federal police organizations participated in the bust.


Daniel Guerin, a spokesman for the Montreal-area Laval police department, said 111 full-patch members were nabbed, while four others were prospective members. Another 29 were associates of the criminal organization and 11 were retired bikers.


"The total number of full-patch members, if not the entire membership of the Hells Angels, was arrested," Guerin said.


The alleged crimes, which include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking and gangsterism, occurred between 1992 and 2009.


Guerin said the investigation, which took three years and involved some 200 police officers and several prosecutors, has also helped solve 22 murders, many of which date back to the biker wars of the 1990s between the Angels and the Rock Machine.


Guerin said police in Quebec also seized Hells bunkers in Montreal, Longueuil, Trois-Rivieres, Sherbrooke and Quebec City as well as the site of the Sorel-Tracy bunker that was recently set ablaze.


"We hope that (the arrests) are very important and that they will stop the violence and the drug dealing in Montreal and all over the Quebec area," he said.


RCMP Sgt. Claude Tremblay said a full-patch member of the notorious biker gang and several of his associates - all in their 40s and 50s - were arrested in New Brunswick.

Police also seized a quantity of guns and drugs from the suspects who were allegedly involved in the transport of drugs between Quebec, the United States and the Maritimes.

"New Brunswick is the corridor to the Maritimes and everything comes through our highways and we have a lot of small airports through the region," Tremblay said.

"There's a lot of trafficking going on. It's mostly related to underground crime and a lot of it is run by the Hells Angels."

The arrests come two weeks after biker-turned-informant Gerald Gallant - who was already serving a life sentence for a 2001 slaying - pleaded guilty to 27 additional charges of first-degree murder.

Acting on information provided by Gallant, provincial police arrested 10 people last month in connection with dozens of murders linked to outlaw biker gangs and other criminal elements over a 25-year period.

Guerin said police employed numerous investigative techniques leading up to Wednesday's sweep but noted it did not involve a "super star" coming out of the woodwork and admitting to crimes.

Still, both Lavigne and Auger say the only way to accomplish a sweep like this is through the use of informants who are themselves important gang members.

With major players jailed, Lavigne expects the drug supply will dry up.

He believes police in Quebec will now use the opportunity to target the street gangs responsible for dealing.

Still, he said, it does not spell the end of the Hells.

"Except for some significant arrests in Ontario, the Hells Angels are virtually untouchable in the rest of Canada," Lavigne said.

"The police are either not interested, there's a lot of incompetence and there's a lot of corruption within law enforcement."

Even in Quebec, it's not game over for the Hells, Auger added.

"It's not dismantled," he said. "They are arrested, they are charged, they are not convicted. It's a little early to get to a conclusion but they will be disorganized for a while."