The Hells Angels are an outlaw motorcycle gang founded in the United States, which
is present all over the world. Members are mainly involved
in drug trafficking. In the United States, Canada, but also in Germany and Scandinavia,
the Hells Angels have led aggressive expansion campaigns. This caused bloody
conflicts attacks against other criminal motorcycle groups including the Bandidos.
The Hells Angels are mainly known in Quebec since the motorcycle war which
tore the province apart from 1994 to 2002. However, it is an international organization
present in around fifty countries. Who are the Hells Angels? And where do they come from?
Come on, today in "History will tell us", we're interested in the Hells Angels!
Subtitles: salvadorarmandoul@gmail.com
The organization of the Hells Angels is hierarchical. Full members are at the top of the
pyramid. They alone have the right to wear the club emblem on their jacket without
sleeve, hence their name in English of "full patched", or "patched".
Just below them, we find the "prospects", that is to say the members
potentials. They must be sponsored by a full member and be on probation
for a period of time to be able to become one themselves. All members
of the chapter has to be in agreement for someone to move up the ranks.
Below, we find the people associated with the club and the friends of the club. This system of
sponsorship ensures solidarity between members. Defense of the honor of the Hells
Angels is also central to the members. They aren't just a social club and the
members are involved in more or less violent criminal activities. Mainly it's
about drug trafficking, but also loan sharks and pimping.
The Hells Angels were founded in 1948 in San Bernardino, California. The first members
are veterans of the United States Army. The name of Hells Angels comes from a squadron
of Flying Tigers, they're American bombers active in China during the Second
World War. This name was probably taken from a 1932 film, produced and directed
by Howard Hugues. Squadron veteran Arvid Olsen
was close to the founders of the club. He never joined the Hells Angels, nor
no one else from that squadron, for that matter.
Ralph Sonny Barger played a central role in the transformation of the Hells Angels. Barger started dating a biker gang
on Oakland in 1957, which was also called the Hells Angels and had a similar emblem.
The two groups meet by chance and decide to merge. Barger wins in
influence and his group became "the Oakland chapter" in 1963. He took the lead
of the set of Hells Angels. Barger imposes strict rules and ensures
to control other groups. Indeed, to create a new chapter, it's necessary be
sponsored by an already existing chapter. It must also include at least six members
organization holders. In 1966, the Bandidos were formed in Texas.
This is another biker gang that is quickly becoming the main
rival of the Hells Angels. The two groups are initially opposed in the United States. With internationalization
of the two clubs, their rivalry is also exported abroad.
Initially, the Hells Angels were mainly drug users, in particular
PCP. This drug is nicknamed "angel dust". At the end of
1960s, they become traffickers. In 1967, during the "summer of love",
they became the main suppliers of LSD to the hippies in San Francisco.
Methamphetamine then becomes the flagship product of the Hells Angels. It allows them to
make sizeable profits. The Hells Angels enjoy, in their early days,
of a relatively good reputation. They are seen as rebels, people living
on the margins of society. However, this reputation changed in the late 1960s.
California Attorney General takes Hells Angels to Court for
their acts of violence. The big turning point is, however,
Altamont show on December 6, 1969. The Rolling Stones decide to organize
a huge spectacle where more than 300,000 people are present. Woodstock was organized
in 7 months, but Altamont only benefits from a few weeks of preparation.
The organizers of the show then appeal to the Hells Angel, at least those of the
666 Oakland chapter, for security. Bikers accept and can, in exchange,
drink as many beers as they want. During the performance of the Stones, things get out
of control. The crowd tries to get too close to the stage and the Hells Angels push them back
a few times. A spectator, Meredith Hunther, gets angry at one of the bikers.
Hunther pulls out a gun. Hells Angels then attack and stab him. He dies on the spot.
Despite this bad reputation, the club
is expanding. It has been present since 1969 on the east coast of the United States. The
club is also expanding in Canada by recruiting gangs of criminal bikers already
existing. In 1977, the Popeyes obtained the right to create a chapter of the Hells Angels that is based in Sorel, Quebec.
In 1979, the hardened killer, Yves "Apache"
Trudeau, founds another chapter in Laval. This chapter gets a bad reputation
and its members consume the cocaine they were supposed to sell and allegedly stole money
to another chapter. In 1985, five Laval Angels were summoned
at a Lennoxville Chapter meeting. They are shot in the back of the neck
then their bodies are thrown into the St. Laurent. This is considered very violent,
even for criminal bikers. In front of this massacre, two criminal bikers
have a reaction going in the opposite direction, which will influence the criminal scene in Quebec.
They are Salvatore Cazzetta and Maurice “Mom” Boucher.
Both were part of a white supremacist motorcycle gang, the SS. Cazzetta,
who is disgusted by the violence of the Hells Angels decides to form his own group, the
Rock Machines. Mom Boucher is rather impressed by the Hells Angels and decides to join them.
Mom Boucher quickly rose through the ranks. He founded a Nomads chapter in Quebec, which
is unattached geographically, it seeks to expand its influence in Ontario.
In 1994, Cazzetta was arrested with 11 tonnes of cocaine. The Rock Machines are losing their
leader and their most important member. Mom Boucher decides to establish the monopoly of
Hells on the sale of drugs in Montreal. It's the war!
This biker war didn't end until 2002. The Hells Angels were allied with the
Rizutto clan of the Montreal mafia and the Rock Machines with the Bandidos.
Accounts vary, but the conflict leaves 126 dead and 9 missing, 9 of whom are innocent.
There were also 135 attempted murders and 84 arson attacks.
The car bomb attacks become the symbol of the conflict. The death of young Daniel
Desrochers on August 9, 1995 outraged public opinion. The 11-year-old was playing in the
street when an explosion takes his life.
In response, the government created the Carcajou squad, made up of different police forces.
In 1997, the Canadian parliament promulgated an anti-gang law. It becomes illegal to do
part of a criminal organization. In September 2000, the journalist Michel Auger,
specialist in criminal affairs and organized crime is the victim of an assassination
attempt. Paradoxically, Mom Boucher becomes a celebrity.
He was even applauded by the crowd in 1998 when he attended a boxing match and
some spectators ask him for an autograph. Boucher, like many bikers, careless
the scope of the new anti-gang law. Operation Spring 2001 led by the squad
Carcajou goes after the Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels. At this time, 10 kilos of cocaine
are seized, as well as 120 kilos of marijuana, 2.7 million US dollars and 8.6
million Canadian dollars. The operation leads to a mega-trial in
2002. Mom Boucher's sentence to life imprisonment ends the conflict.
Police closely monitor outlaw motorcyclists and regularly conduct operations against
them, as was the case in 2009 with Operation SharQc. All
Hells Angels chapters are captured and 111 of the 113 members of the organization are then arrested.
The Hells Angels spread in Europe from the 1970s and 1980s. In France, the first
club was founded in 1981, under the auspices of Loulou de Crimée. He then becomes a chef
of the Hells Angels of France. The club has eight chapters in France today.
The most aggressive groups outside of Canada and the United States are based in Germany
and in Scandinavia. The aggressive expansion of the Hells Angels in these territories during
the 1990s disturbed other criminal motorcycle clubs, mainly the
Bandidos. The Hells Angels' will to control
the drug market in northern Europe causes war with the Bandidos and their
allies from 1994 to 1997. The height of the conflict came when a prospect of the Bandidos
fires an anti-tank weapon at the Hells Angels headquarters in Copenhagen.
Result: two dead and 17 injured. Danish parliament passes anti-gang law
in 1997. At the beginning of the 2000s, the Danish police carried out mass arrests
of the Hells Angels and the Bandidos. In Germany, the unrest between the Bandidos
and the Hells Angels began in 1972. The aggressive expansion of the Hells Angels during
the 1990s provoked an increase in tensions. Real clashes take place from
mid-2000s and early 2010s.
The Hells Angels are an outlaw motorcycle group founded in the United States, which
is present all over the world. Members are mainly involved
in drug trafficking. In the United States, Canada, but also in Germany and Scandinavia,
the Hells Angels waged aggressive expansion campaigns. This caused conflicts
bloody attacks against other criminal motorcycle groups, including the Bandidos.
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