For the first time since Operation SharQc 15 years ago, the Sûreté du Québec burst into a Hells Angels premises on Thursday evening.
Around 7:30 p.m., no less than 150 patrollers 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 Rang Nord 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.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
The fifty members of the Tactical Intervention Group (GTI) were assisted by two armored vehicles to carry out the search.
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 members of the GTI is explained by the fact that the property has outbuildings.
The police had been informed that a gathering of around thirty biker sympathizers was to take place in the premises on Thursday evening, which is why they carried out this large-scale operation.
Each individual present on site had to be identified and met.
A dog handler, forensic identification and smuggling specialists and intelligence police officers participated in the operation.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
A dog handler was on site.
“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, Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville and Saint-Basile-le-Grand,” indicated the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in a communicated.
This is the second time the property has been raided since it was acquired by the Hells Angels in 2018.
That year, investigators from the National Organized Crime Suppression 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
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
In 2018, Hells Angel of the South section Dean Moore and Richard Dion-Lecompte, son of another member, Robert Lecompte, testified before the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux and gave certain information about the property.
It was acquired in March 2018 by Robert Lecompte and his son, and they still own it through a numbered company.
The property, which covers 5,000 square meters and is 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 admitted that the place was equipped with a dozen surveillance cameras and motion detectors, and investigator Alain Belleau, of the SQ, an expert on bikers, had described the property.
The investigator said that at the entrance to the premises, there is a small room where a member of a Hells Angels training 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 bearing the Hells Angels and Support 81 logos. The watch room [surveillance] 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
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
In 2018, the Hells Angels of the South section hosted, on their property on 4e North row, the “Canada Run”, a gathering to which all the Hells Angels in the country and even elsewhere 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 Rang Nord was the first targeting a Hells Angels premises in 10 years, since Operation SharQc in April 2009, during which the police burst into the last bikers’ bunkers, including that of Cabarete in the Dominican Republic. , where the local authorities intervened.
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 1990s which were nicknamed bunkers from the time of the War of bikers.
The new premises of the Hells Angels have also been the subject of searches since, 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.