http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/607b25f7-1c84-4e27-a0ea-d6175d2d1de2__7C___0.html?

POLICE AND BIKERS LEARNED FROM THEIR MISTAKES

On April 15, 2009, Operation SharQc was conducted. The goal, with its 156 accused: to eradicate the Hells Angels who, a few years earlier, had been at the heart of a war that had left 160 people dead and as many injured in Quebec. Ten years later, it is clear that the goal was not achieved.

The Quebec Hells Angels are as present as before, if not more so. They have about 80 members at liberty, and they have more than 500 sympathizers or apprentices in their junior clubs or clothing vendors in their colors. According to the Sûreté du Québec, they sit at the top of the organized crime pyramid and control more than 95% of Quebec's territory in the area of ​​drug trafficking. They have no more enemies in bikers. This does not preclude sporadic settling of accounts since 2012, and until recently, attributed to the Hells Angels by the police, in Montreal and elsewhere.

The Hells Angels are old and have made war. They are now more respected than the young leaders of the mafia who replaced the older ones, carried away by interminable intestine wars.

The Hells Angels have created strong ties with this mafia and other criminal groups to which they even impose a "tax" for the right to carry out certain activities or operate in certain territories.

They still have five sections, one of which, Sherbrooke, is however inactive, for lack of a sufficient number of members without judicial constraint. They extend their tentacles to the maritime provinces. They also sponsor school clubs in cocaine producing or importing countries. The Hells Angels, who spent at least six years together at Bordeaux Prison, are much more "tightly knit" and learned police investigative methods after seeing SharQc's voluminous evidence.


CONSTANT PRESSURE

Even though some Hells Angels have received long sentences - let's not forget - SharQc has been a failure for the police and the prosecution. Because of the management of the evidence before the courts, which could not absorb such a mass of information - Bouchard report - and because of the Jordan decision rendered in 2016 by the Supreme Court of Canada, which limits judicial time limits , the way to investigate bikers has completely changed.

These are now done in two stages. The police conduct multiple searches and arrest suspects only much later, as they must be prepared to disclose the evidence at the time of the charge.

These new investigations are now called Objection, Harmful, Urchin and Orc. They each target some members of the Hells Angels, called the heads, their employees and street vendors. This three-level attack means that the dozens of people arrested are charged in different court files, which prevents mega-trials.

Through these repeated searches, the police exert constant pressure on the bikers, who do not know where the shot is coming from and are constantly on the alert. It does not happen a week without a lawyer or a criminal saying he expects a raid in the coming days.

Two of the Hells Angels arrested in recent investigations had just received their rank, while another was an apprentice ( prospect ). The police certainly want to discourage the succession.

Another method used, however, is not new: to recruit a member of the criminal organization, who thus becomes a civilian undercover officer paid by the state.

This worked in the Objection investigation, while several of the 60 suspects arrested in April 2018 had already settled their cases a few months after the strike.

THE SYSTEM AND PUBLIC OPINION

But if the police had to adapt after SharQc, the bikers did it too, starting to fight on fronts they would never have exploited 10 years ago.

One of them: the courts. They sued the Sûreté du Québec, the Criminal and Penal Prosecutions Branch and the Attorney General of Quebec for tens of millions, claiming that they had been illegally detained after Operation SharQc.

They go to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada because they are turned back on arrival in southern countries.

They are displayed by organizing a princely wedding in downtown Montreal.

They do not want to leave all the space for the police version in the public opinion and therefore address the media to denounce the strong police presence at a rally on the South Shore of Montreal.

Ten years after SharQc, the battle takes a new turn and is far from won for the authorities.