Police strike at the Hells Angels of Trois-Rivières

After the powerful South chapter last May, it was the Hells Angels of Trois-Rivières who were the target of a large police deployment on Friday evening in Hérouxville. Their hideout was visited by heavily armed officers seeking to gather evidence as part of a broad investigation into organized crime.

Around ten people were inside the building at the time of the operation. It is unknown how many members of the Hells Angels are in good standing among them. One person was arrested for carrying a weapon.

The police wanted to ensure that the operation, which began around 8 p.m., took place without violence and acted as a deterrent by carrying out a real show of force.

Nearly 100 members of the Sûreté du Québec were mobilized. The tactical intervention group was the first to intervene, securing the scene for the police and investigators who came to put the finishing touches to a vast police investigation launched several months ago.

Police officers, who were searching for firearms, are investigating various violent incidents that have occurred in recent months involving bikers and other criminal groups.

Police officers from the national organized crime squad, regional mixed squads, intervention teams specializing in organized crime and criminal intelligence, crime scene technicians, dog handlers and weapons specialists fire were on site.

Gunshots near the hideout

This visit by the police to the den located on Rang Saint-Pierre in Hérouxville is not a first. Shots were fired near the bikers’ gathering place on September 18, which triggered a police deployment.

It was the second such event to occur in less than a year. In December 2023, a projectile hit the window of the den and the police said they had reason to believe that explosives had also been used.

Other shots have been fired in recent days.

According to police sources, the region is not immune to the climate of tension that is rife in the Quebec region and in the east of the province, as individuals rebel against the Hells Angels organization.

An affiliated club also targeted

This is the second time in less than two months that the police have invited themselves to the lair of an outlaw biker gang in the region. On November 20, 80 police officers carried out a search of the premises of Satan’s Crew de Bécancour, a club affiliated with the Hells Angels since last May.

A man who was carrying a firearm was arrested at the scene. Christian Jr Bédard pleaded guilty in particular to a charge of carrying a weapon for a dangerous purpose and received a prison sentence of 59 months.

Other arrests

Less than a month ago, on December 19, the police simultaneously carried out a series of searches which led to the arrest of 35 people linked, according to them, to the bikers.

Among those arrested is Trifluvien René Boisvert, who now faces charges of negligent use of a firearm, unauthorized possession of a hunting rifle and possession of weapons and ammunition in a dangerous purpose.

René Boisvert, who is detained during the legal proceedings, is, according to police sources, close to the Hells Angels. A sign of the tensions that reign in the criminal world, his house, which he had just sold, was criminally set on fire last November in Trois-Rivières.

Past police deployments

The last time that so many police officers dedicated to organized crime were deployed in the region, it was to update information sheets and check the identity of some 300 bikers who took part in the traditional First Run (first outing) organized in 2018 by the Trois-Rivières chapter.

All had converged in a bar in Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, after being intercepted and questioned by police officers who blocked traffic in all directions.

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For another police deployment of this kind, it was necessary to go back to the dismantling of the famous bunker on Boulevard Saint-Jean in Trois-Rivières, closed by the police during Operation SharQC in 2009.

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Following a court order, Trois-Rivières received the keys several years later as reimbursement for unpaid tax arrears by the criminal group. The building was razed in late June 2015.