A boss asked Tuesday, in the newsroom of The Pressthis question that everyone is asking about the individuals who violently attack bikers who sell drugs in the Quebec region.
Since the violent events began in the Capitale-Nationale region, everyone has agreed that attacks against the Hells Angels, the most powerful criminal organization in Quebec, and even in Canada, would have been unthinkable. barely two years ago.
In recent days, we have even heard that the bikers are not fighting back and that they are afraid.
But it perhaps went without saying that the criminal organization, which controls 85% of Quebec territory, according to the Sûreté du Québec, would be the first organization to taste the medicine of the new generation of street gangs and other individuals disorganized crime.
Other established criminal organizations, such as the mafia, are not immune either.
Double-edged knife
The Hells Angels experienced a bloody war during the 1990s and are probably in no hurry to return to the same paths.
They have become more refined, have become for many “businessmen” who are no longer directly involved in criminal activities, they rent their territories, collect royalties from the traffickers to whom they have given their blessing and they oblige those here to obtain supplies of narcotics from them.
In short, they have become gentrified, a bit like the members of established mafia families in the metropolitan area who, for the most part, no longer get their hands dirty and no longer have as many personnel to carry out the dirty work as they used to. at hand in another era.
So, for several years now, criminal organizations have used street gangs to do the dirty work.
It was a two-edged sword, because in the process, the criminal organizations demonstrated their weaknesses and, simultaneously, made the street gangs understand that they had become an important cog in the mosaic of organized crime in Quebec.
Influential criminals probably saw what was happening in Quebec coming. In 2020, when investigators from the Quebec Strategy to Combat Armed Violence, CENTAURE, met with some of them to ask them to intervene with young people to stop the discharge of firearms which were growing strongly in Montreal , they told them that there would be no point in getting involved, that young people would not listen to them.
Nowadays, prisons are controlled by gang members, who no longer have respect for members of established criminal organizations, sources in the criminal and correctional sectors tell us.
They would take advantage of their incarceration to make contacts and allies, for the day they get out.
Self-sufficient traffickers
In the greater Capitale-Nationale region, the Hells Angels may have been the architects of their own misfortune by allowing independent traffickers, who are their enemies today, to make money, to build their own organization and control of the street. In short, they gave them the means and the strength to rebel.
While a kilogram of cocaine was trading at around $45,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it currently sells for around $22,000 in Quebec, proof that this drug is entering Quebec and Canada on a massive scale.
Police investigations carried out in recent years have shown that more and more independent traffickers have contacts in supplying countries and pretend to be cocaine importers.
Others have demonstrated the existence of a corridor between Toronto and Montreal, and that traffickers obtain their supplies directly from the Queen City – where the kilogram costs less than that sold by the Hells Angels – to then sell the drugs to the Quebec.
They are now self-sufficient. Why would they still do business with bikers and pay them tax on every kilogram of cocaine?
A social problem
In the Quebec region, there is a conflict between a structured criminal organization, which is perhaps slower to get going, and individuals who are disorganized, unpredictable, and perhaps more difficult to capture. Police, criminals and observers wonder if and when the Hells Angels will respond.
But make no mistake, this is not just the problem of the Hells Angels, it is that of all of society.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, or write to [email protected]
The story so far
Since last year, a violent conflict has pitted independent traffickers linked to street gangs against the Hells Angels and their sympathetic clubs in the Quebec and Bellechasse regions.
This conflict was marked by arson, shooting at buildings, beatings, kidnapping and torture, and even murder.
At the end of the week, in Saint-Malachie, a case of kidnapping and kidnapping left one dead and three injured.
Videos began to circulate in which we see Hells Angels traffickers being beaten and tortured by individuals in the pay of independent traffickers.