Police target Quebec Hells Angels chapters

Updated Wed. Apr. 15 2009 10:06 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Quebec provincial police say some 1,200 officers were involved in a series of early-morning raids targeting alleged members of five Hells Angels chapters.
The Sureté du Québec says the Project SharQc raids are targeting people who have allegedly been involved in crimes -- including various drug and gangsterism offenses, as well as various murders -- that took place between 1992 and 2009.
Laval police spokesperson Lt. Daniel Guerin told CTV Newsnet that police were executing 177 warrants across Quebec on Wednesday.
More than 100 people are "now in jail," he said just before 9:30 a.m.
"We will also seize five bunkers of the Hells Angels," Guertin said in a phone interview from Laval, Que.
"We will seize the Montreal chapter...we will have also the south chapter that is in Longueuil, we will also have the Sherbrooke bunker, the Trois-Rivières bunker and the Quebec City bunker, too."
The raids were part of a three-year investigation into the Quebec Hells Angels, he said, that involved 200 police officers and prosecutors.
Police arrested both active and "retired" Hells Angels on Wednesday, Guerin said, because of their alleged involvement in 22 murders, drug trafficking, conspiracy and gangsterism offenses.
Investigative reporter Julian Sher, who has co-authored two books about the Hells Angels, called the Thursday morning raids a "huge" accomplishment for police.
"It has to be a devastating impact to the Hells Angels, regardless of how it turns out in the courts," he told CTV.ca in a phone interview on Wednesday morning.
"Just the fact that the police can pull this off again sends a message."
The scope of Wednesday's raids indicates that the police used intelligence to undertake them, he said.
"The police are getting smarter and better," said Sher. "They are using the only tool that is effective against organized crime and that's infiltration and intelligence, and they've learned that lesson."
The SQ will hold a press conference about Project SharQc in Montreal on Thursday morning.
Last month, police arrested 10 people in connection with alleged offences connected to Quebec's notorious Rock Machine-Hells Angels biker war of the 1990s.
In February, "Operation Axe," a raid involving 700 police officers, targeted suspected biker and street gang members in Ontario and Quebec. Forty-seven people were arrested, some of whom police alleged were Hells Angels members.