Raids target five Hells Angels chapters in Que.
Updated Wed. Apr. 15 2009 10:39 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Police have launched a major crackdown on the Quebec Hells Angels, sending some 1,200 officers to round up suspected members of five provincial chapters in pre-dawn raids on Wednesday morning.
The Suret? du Qu?bec 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 Daniel Guerin said more than 100 people had been arrested by mid-morning and police had begun seizing Hells Angels property.
"We will also seize five bunkers of the Hells Angels," Guerin 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-Rivi?res bunker and the Quebec City bunker, too."
The majority of arrests have occurred in Quebec, though five male suspects were nabbed in St. Leonard, N.B. Other arrests were made in France and the Dominican Republic.
RCMP Sgt. Claude Tremblay said the suspects who were arrested in New Brunswick would be flown to Montreal on Wednesday.
Guerin said the raids were part of a three-year investigation into the Quebec Hells Angels, which involved prosecutors and 200 police officers.
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.
Sher said the Hells Angels currently have 400-450 members scattered across Canada.
Last month, police arrested 10 people in "Operation Baladeur" -- a series of raids that saw 11 people arrested in connection with alleged criminal offenses that relate to Quebec's notorious 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.
With files from The Canadian Press
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