Hells Angels dealt big blow

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This article was published 16/04/2009 (6255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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 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.

"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.

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.

 

— The Canadian Press