Projects Skylark is the culmination of a 14 month-long investigation that
ultimately led to a series of warrants being executed on August 1st last week. We ended up
ultimately charging 15 people with 195 criminal code charges. We seized a significant amount of
drugs: about 12 kilograms of cocaine, 12 kilograms of cannabis that involved shatter as well as some
edibles; as well as methamphetamine, fentanyl, and a series of firearms, too.. You can see
some of them here. Yes, absolutely behind us. This drug distribution network was
linked to the Hells Angels and in their support clubs: in Sudbury the Hooligans and, generally
across the province, the Red Devils. Several individuals directly linked to members of
those criminal organizations were targeted and the network that they had spanned not only Niagara and
Hamilton, but as well as Blind River, Sudbury, and right down through Ottawa and basically
everywhere in between. These individuals were significant because of their affiliation
with these outlaw motorcycle gangs. And we should tell everyone, obviously, that outlaw
motorcycle gangs are linked to a large number of organized crime groups throughout this nation, and
it's a national priority for law enforcement to target these groups. And these individuals,
amongst the charges are human trafficking. So it shows the extent to which organized crime
members and outlaw motorcycle gangs will leverage their criminal networks. That they're borderless
and that they really focus on any commodity to victimize our communities which involves every
type of drugs as well as taking advantage of an exploiting human being. But drugs have been
seized, like fentanyl, you said — horribly deadly and dangerous to the communities, obviously — property
seized, houses seized, and human trafficking is you know the most despicable form of
event, or thing that we have going on. Is it is so disturbing to know that that's
happening and people to be taken advantage of and victimized because of this. Absolutely,
human trafficking is prolific in the province of Ontario. It's become a national problem. People
should be absolutely beside themselves angry at the fact that this is occurring in Canada. It's
really modern-day slavery, is what it is. It's horrific, it's individuals that are being exploited,
usually females, usually in the sex trade, but also for forced labour and they're being harbored and
transported and taken advantage of. And we do have survivors in this case and we have other
individuals that we will investigate hopefully linked up to this organized crime group. And you
spoke of fentanyl; fentanyl is a preeminent drug that's fueling the opioid crisis in this country.
But again, if you look at just those two commodities, the impact on public safety that
these individuals had, was so adverse that you can tell that anyone who's wearing the patch of
an outlaw motorcycle gang in any of our communities should offend the senses of anybody who lives there. Yeah,
yeah — run them out of town. So anyways, like this happens all across the province. We just did a
Project En Route, Project Maple Leaf, talking about human trafficking that happens all across the
province and when people are traveling through the province on our major highways and people
should be alert and wise to what's going on around them. Yeah, we have to be hyper vigilant
and what we want our communities to know is that they cannot tolerate human trafficking.
They cannot abdicate the responsibility to us. It's the responsibility of every one of our citizens
to report these crimes as they occur. If they are remotely suspicious, or if they're a survivor, or if
they're involved currently and being victimized they need to be able to reach out to any social
service provider, but especially the police. You talk to you police force in your jurisdiction or if
you want to remain anonymous you can certainly contact Crimestoppers and report that crime. Yeah. You
could save a life. Well we're trying to save lives, that's our whole mandate is public safety,
community safety, and saving life and we have equipment on ourselves to help with overdoses,
but when we see people like this that are being victimized, that are being hustled, and
are being trafficked, and then the distribution of drugs and people that are profiting off the
backs of other people who are who are being victimized. Members of outlaw motorcycle gangs
don't care about you, they don't care about your family, they don't care about your neighbors,
they don't care about the people they are victimizing, or that they hurt or kill. They
really just care about profit. They are profit driven and there can be no mistake about that.
Anyways, thank you for the work that you are doing in your unit, and we appreciate everyone out there
and we need to help from the public as well. If you have information, if you know something that's
going on that suspicious call Crimestoppers, call your local police service, and we will certainly
follow up on tips and leads and hopefully take more people off the streets that shouldn't be
there, and help those victims that need to be rescued. Absolutely, thank you. Thank you very much.