For the first time since Operation SharQc fifteen years ago, the Sûreté du Québec forcefully burst into a Hells Angels premises on Thursday evening.
Around 7:30 p.m., no less than 150 patrol officers and investigators, including around fifty members of the Tactical Intervention Group (GTI) assisted by two armored vehicles, invaded the Hells Angels premises and their property, on 4e northern range in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu, in Montérégie.
A helicopter was called in and flew over the property, and the SQ mobile command post was dispatched to the scene.
The investigators left the Boucherville investigation center, on the South Shore of Montreal, and moved in convoy on Highway 20, preceded by police officers on motorcycles who opened the way for them.
The strong presence of GTI members is explained by the fact that the property has outbuildings.
The police received information that a gathering of around thirty bikers and supporters was to take place in the premises on Thursday evening, hence the reason why they are carrying out this large-scale operation.
Each individual present on site will be identified and interviewed.
A dog handler, forensic identification and smuggling specialists, and intelligence police officers are participating in the operation.
“Police officers from the Montérégie Regional Mixed Squad (ERM) are currently carrying out a drug search. This operation targets the Hells Angels and represents the 3e phase of an investigative project. The search follows two other operations which took place on 1er May, among others in Chambly and Marieville, as well as on May 22, among others in Beloeil, McMasterville, St-Bruno-de-Montarville and St-Basile-le-Grand,” indicates the Sûreté du Québec in a press release.
This is the 2e time the property has been raided since it became the property of the Hells Angels in 2018.
The same year, investigators from the National Organized Crime Repression Squad (ENRCO) visited it as part of an investigation called Objection through which they dismantled a drug trafficking network.
In red and white since 2018
In 2018, South Hells Angels Dean Moore and Richard Dion-Lecompte, the son of another member, Robert Lecompte, testified before the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux and gave some information about the property.
This was acquired in March 2018 by Robert Lecompte and his son, and they still own it through a numbered company.
The property, which is 5,000 square meters and valued at $258,000, was purchased for $220,000 from a businessman who owed money to the Hells Angels, the bikers explained to the RACJ.
Dean Moore had admitted that the place was equipped with a dozen surveillance cameras and motion detectors, and the Sûreté du Québec’s biker expert, investigator Alain Belleau, had described the place.
The latter said that at the entrance to the premises there is a small room where a member of a Hells Angels school club was on the morning of the 2018 search.
In this small room, there is a monitor on which appear, in multiplex, the images filmed by the cameras and the motion detector alarm. During the investigators’ visit, there was also a calendar which was in fact a surveillance schedule, according to Mr. Belleau.
“It’s the garage on the property which is South’s premises. It has been furnished in the traditional style of Hells Angels premises, with a well-stocked bar, a meeting table, a TV and two refrigerators emblazoned with Hells Angels and Support 81 logos. watch serves to prevent theft, but also to protect the place against surreptitious police intrusions,” explained the police officer, adding that the premises were painted red and white, the colors of the Hells Angels.
A gathering place
In 2018, the Hells Angels of the South section hosted, on their property on 4e North row, the Canada runa gathering to which all Hells Angels in the country and beyond are invited, and which takes place every five years.
In May 2022, the place was the meeting point for the first hike of the year (first run) and the following December, the gathering place where bikers celebrated 45 years of the presence of the Hells Angels in Quebec.
The search carried out in 2018 on the property of 4e North rank was the first targeting a Hells Angels premises in ten years, since the SharQc operation carried out in April 2009 and during which the police had invaded the last bikers’ bunkers, including that of Cabarete in the Dominican Republic, invested by local authorities.
It was only from 2015 that the first released Hells Angels began to set up new premises which, however, no longer have the appearance of the fenced fortresses of the 90s that we nicknamed bunkers from the time of the biker wars.
The new premises of the Hells Angels have also been searched since then, notably that of the Trois-Rivières section, as part of the Orque project, in December 2018.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.