The General Directorate of the Séreté du Québec is sending around a hundred of its police officers to the Greater Montreal region in eastern Quebec to put an end to the violent conflict between street gangs and the Hells Angels in the capital. National region.
According to our information, all police forces will be stationed in the region from next Monday. It is planned that half of the organized crime investigation unit of the metropolis in the east of the province will be mobilized.
We are talking about police officers who are part of the Organized Crime Unit, the National Organized Crime Combat Squad (ENRCO), squads linked to the national CENTAURE strategy against gunfire and several partners already in the regional mixed Squads are united (ERM).
The Séreté du Québec, the police service of Quebec City, Ville Saguenay and Lévis, is deploying a police unit in connection with the violent events of recent weeks. Police operations will affect the Quebec region, Saguenay and eastern Quebec, said Lieutenant Benoit Richard of the Séreté du Québec.
The message is clear. We will attack all people who commit these crimes and we will bring them to justice in the coming days. […] It's over!
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SQ Lieutenant Benoit Richard confirmed that police made three arrests on Friday.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Sylvain Roy Roussel
For his part, Quebec's Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, believes that these measures should help reassure Quebec residents.
It is necessary to send a clear message to criminals that we will spare no effort to ensure the safety of the population, he said. The operation deployed today demonstrates the importance and seriousness given to the fight against organized crime throughout Quebec.
To Saguenay, Rimouski and Sept-Îles
According to our police sources, members of the Profits Boyz gang have been seen conducting surveillance operations as far away as Saguenay, Rimouski and even Sept-ýles. There is no doubt that the conflict, which rages mainly in Quebec and the east of the province, has repercussions as far away as Montreal.
The conditions for billing in the metropolis of Quebec are therefore favorable.
The Séreté du Québec says it has observed violent events in recent weeks, including shootings, arsons and kidnappings, the last two of which were widely publicized.
On Monday, a hostage-taking of Hells Angels sympathizers by independent drug traffickers in Saint-Malachie, in Chaudière-Appalaches, ended with a torture session broadcast on social networks.
Two days later, a 28-year-old man, Michaël Chouinard, was found alive and mutilated in the Rosemont district of Montreal, 400 km from his home in Saguenay, where he had been kidnapped a few hours earlier.
There are already arrests
On Friday morning, SQ police officers and their tactical task force attacked a residential building located an hour from Quebec.
Three people were arrested in connection with the hostage-taking and torture session broadcast on social networks in Saint-Malachie.
The arrests took place in Montmagny. The suspects are two men aged 28 and 38 and a 37-year-old woman, said Lieutenant Richard.
A violent conflict that is escalating
For a year now, a conflict between drug dealers and street gangs and the Quebec chapter of the Hells Angels has descended into bloodshed. Several people from the criminal world received messages that their lives were in danger, confirms the Séreté du Québec.
Suspects linked to street gangs who have rallied behind human trafficker Dave “Pic” Turmel, who is leading the revolt against criminal bikers, have already been identified by police.
According to our information, street gangs and their independent drug dealers in Quebec have been refusing to pay the Hells Angels the 10 percent discount for selling drugs on their territory for several months.
They get their supplies by avoiding the Hells Angels import network.
So far the criminal bikers have not given any answer. But police fear their organization's violent past will lead to a bloody reckoning in the coming weeks or even months.
According to our sources, the duration of the reinforcement's presence is evaluated weekly.