Hell’s Angels | A gathering under close surveillance

It was under heavy police surveillance that the Hells Angels celebrated the 45^e anniversary of their presence in Canada this weekend, in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu, in Montérégie.

The event, which took place over two days, Friday and Saturday, took place at the local Hells Angels of the South section, on the 4^e North row.

The Hells Angels section of Montreal was the first of this international criminal organization to be created in Canada, on December 5, 1977.

According to our information, between 350 and 400 bikers from across Quebec and Canada took part in the event.

Hells Angels from sections of all the provinces were observed by the police, as well as members of at least a dozen school clubs or sympathizers in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.

Investigators from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other police forces took numerous photos and videos to update their organizational and member information sheets for their subordinate clubs.

To ward off police surveillance, bikers set up a large black canvas to hide the depth of the property, and members of junior clubs stood guard and blocked entrances.

The Hells Angels have also set up a shuttle system with vehicles with tinted windows to transport guests.

The police also monitored them in hotels and restaurants, where dozens of bikers slept or ate, some not hesitating to wear their jackets.

SQ patrol officers also erected roadblocks on the roads leading to the Hells Angels South premises to check for drunk driving.

The event took place without violence. No biker was arrested, and the police distributed a few statements for violations of the Highway Safety Code.

Cazzetta, always a Hells

Salvatore Cazzetta was seen at the event, which means the influential 68-year-old biker is still a member of the Hells Angels, and not a retiree, contrary to recent media reports.

According to our information, Cazzetta, who had been a member of the Montreal section since the mid-2000s, changed sections and now belongs to the South section.

It had been several months since the police had seen Cazzetta sporting his jacket.

Sources told us that the biker would have been “boxed” for a while. The word comes from the English expression patch in the boxwhich means that the organization would have forbidden him to wear his jacket and his colors for a certain period, the time to settle one or more situations.

According to our information, the biker can wear his new colors of the South section.

Cazzetta is the former leader of the Rock Machine who waged, with their allies, a war on the Hells Angels which left 160 dead and as many injured from 1994 to 2002.

Cazzetta and a few other Rock Machine members left their band to join the Hells Angels after the conflict.

These kept the Hells Angels from being completely wiped off the map during the massive SharQc anti-biker roundup in April 2009, as they helped the organization retain the planned minimum number of six active members to maintain the section of Montreal opened while the other four sections—South, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke and Quebec—were inactive until at least the mid-2010s.

Cazzetta has benefited from three stops in the legal process in the courts over the past 11 years.

In May 2011, he was part of a group of 31 SharQc defendants released due to delays. In 2016, he benefited from a stoppage of the legal process in the wake of the Machine project, led by the SPVM in 2009 against traffickers of illegal cigarettes.

And in December 2017, there was another stoppage of the judicial process pronounced in his favor when he was accused of concealment in the wake of the Magot-Mastiff investigation by which the SQ beheaded in November 2015 a Mafia-Mafia alliance. biker-gang that ran organized crime in Montreal.

A new member

The weekend anniversary also allowed the police to see that the Hells Angels of Trois-Rivières had a new member, Jessy Kean. The latter, aged 47, was hang aroundthe first official status of the Hells Angels, for more than 15 years, and made many stays in prison.

Kean was notably wanted for three years in the wake of the Loquace investigation by which the SQ dismantled a consortium of individuals who tried to seize the monopoly of the distribution of cocaine in Canada, before being arrested in Montreal in 2016.

There are currently more than 80 members of the Hells Angels in Quebec. They make up the largest criminal organization in Quebec and Canada, and one of the priorities of the main police forces.

To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.