(Montreal) Investigators from the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) have been arresting around ten individuals suspected of being part of a network of producers and distributors of synthetic drugs since early Tuesday morning. connected to the Hells Angels.
The arrests, which took place in Saint-Lin – Laurentides, Gore, Sainte-Julienne, Morin-Heights, Neuville and Deux-Montagnes, north of Montreal, and in the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, in the west of the metropolis, are the culmination of a long investigation and a major wave of searches carried out a year ago, to the day.
On November 22, 2022, nearly 300 police officers from the SPVM, but also from other police forces, carried out around thirty searches and dismantled two clandestine methamphetamine manufacturing laboratories, one in Entrelacs, in Lanaudière, and the other in Ontario.
Bloodhounds then seized more than a million methamphetamine pills, various quantities of ecstasy, fentanyl, cocaine, cannabis, prohibited weapons and thousands of dollars in cash.
45 million tablets
In the months that followed, investigators were able to establish, according to elements found on site, that the suspects responsible for the Entrelacs laboratory would have had the capacity to produce 45 million tablets.
A year ago, 13 suspects were arrested and released pending further investigation.
About ten of them were arrested again Tuesday morning and should appear later at the Joliette courthouse to be charged with drug production and trafficking.
“We have struck a big blow,” declared in November 2022 the commander of the SPVM’s Organized Crime Division, Francis Renaud.
The police then announced that they had dismantled a network linked to the Hells Angels and made “a hole in the production chain” which supplied the regions of Montreal, Quebec and the North Shore.
“These are essentially encapsulation sites. Here, we take the finished product, meth powder, and mix it with caffeine to make the famous tablet. If we draw a parallel with [l’émission] breaking Badwe are really in this unsanitary laboratory which manufactures the raw material,” added Commander Renaud about the clandestine laboratory dismantled in Entrelacs.
With Henri Ouellette-Vézina
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to the email address [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.