Friday, April 6, 2007
On Wednesday, approximately forty Hells Angels locations were raided by police in Ontario, New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Police arrested more than thirty people in the three provinces.
The largest Hells Angels location in Canada, located in downtown Toronto on 498 Eastern Ave., was raided early Wednesday morning. Nearly sixteen members were arrested with two members still on the wanted list. Toronto Police removed the sign and are now investigating. They are currently planning a large crackdown on the Hells Angels in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
“Hopefully by now biker gangs and their associates are getting the message: we’re here to shut you down. You can run but you can’t hide, and we will do all that we can to bring you to justice,” said Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner (OPP) Julian Fantino. “I believe that we have to continue the attack on organized crime however it’s manifested, and we owe the citizens of our community no less.” “It’s a good day for policing in Toronto, a good day for policing in Ontario.”
“Project Develop was an 18-month investigation that utilized a full-patch Hells Angels member as a police agent to infiltrate the Toronto downtown chapter of the Hells Angels,” OPP Inspector Dan Redmond said yesterday. “Hells Angels criminal activity has been exposed by one of their own.”
Nearly 170 charges were laid against thirty-one people, police said, though they provided no list of charges or names. Sixteen full-patch members are said to be in custody, with arrest warrants outstanding for another two. Police seized vehicles, drugs, weapons, property and real-estate, but were not specific about the amounts.
The Hells Angels is a large biker gang founded 1948 in Fontana, California and is estimated to have 1,800 members in 22 countries. Since they started many other biker gangs merged with them, due to the fact that the Hells Angels are larger. The Hells Angels have 500 members in Canada, thirty-four active chapters in Canada, sixteen in Ontario, seven in British Columbia, five in Quebec, three in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan, and one in Manitoba. A number of raids have been made since, with two in September and January 2006.
A location on Sherwood Ave. in Scarborough, Ontario, and a house on Berard Court in Barrie, Ontario are under a restraining order as they may have drug related crimes.
The Toronto chapter of Hells Angels, in the “Real Deal News” section of their website, alleged that the police were staging a show for the media and that the raids were overly dramatic to make Hells Angels look bad on television.