Political Science

Operation SharQC involved issuing of warrant of arrests and search warrants to suspected members of the Hells Angels gang across Quebec, New Brunswick, France and Dominican Republic (CBC News). A warrant of arrest was issued by the police during the raid targeting the Longueulli and Sherbrooke club bunkers. The gang was implicated as being involved in committing a series of crimes that included murder, drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder, racketeering, arms trafficking, assault, extortion, money laundering prostitution, trafficking in stolen goods and gangsterism (Sound).
         
Arrests of key major players were made in an attempt to destroy the infrastructure and interrupt the gangs capability to use communities to commit crime. Among the charges the gang was arrested for was in connection with 22 murders that occurred since 1992 (Parent). The arrested 100 members were charged with first degree murder charges, drug trafficking and gangsterism. Mom Boucher, the leader of Hells Angels gang in Quebec was charged murdering two prison guards in 2002 after the judges had investigated him for 11 days and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of release in 25years.

In one of the trial cases for Hell Angels one of the judges quitted and another judge had to do a new trial after a complaint to him by one of the defense lawyers. Other several other judges also left the cases citing personal hardship. Finally in 2004 nine Hells Angels gang members were convicted of gangsterism, conspiracy to commit murder and drug trafficking. The members pleaded not guilty and their trial was ended.

Sylvain Boulanger who was a former fulltime member of Hells Angels in Sherbrooke signed a contract of 2.9million to be paid to him by the Regional Integrated Squads (Cherry).  He was one on the sole witnesses in the Operation SharQc and he assisted with the arrest of 129 gang members including the gang leaders. Boulanger gave a 634 page written statement and also gave 23 statements on video tapes and assisted the investigators in the operation. In accepting to be an informant, Boulanger will not be charged of any crime and he was to be paid 2.9million which according to Canadian history was the largest money to be paid to a police informant. Boulanger volunteered to become an informant so as to get a chance to revenge after his plea to rejoin the Hells Angels was rejected (Ctv). The sum settled for informant has raised controversy and public criticism as it was too high. It emerges that if he could help police capture the gang members, he must have been an extensive player in the gang activity. He should have been viewed as a gang member rather than being paid and not charged.  This is misuse of public money as the sum paid was too high.
 
Dany Kane was also a Hells Angels gang member who signed a contract of 1.75 million as an undercover agent with provincial police of Canada (Ctv). Kane also joined Rockers a rival gang to Hells Angels and he therefore gave investigators crucial information from within during operation springtime. By the fact that a police source in Quebec acknowledges that they required the service of an informant to be able to investigate a gang like Hells Angels, it clearly illustrates the police failure in both the crime prevention and investigative role. This also illustrates that the police are not bold enough to deal with organized gangs.

It also appears quite illogical to pay such huge amounts to informants as contracts signed between the police and informants. The amounts spent on the informants were quite an exorbitant and could instead have been used to train additional police force in crime control. Even after the informants were to be paid such a huge amount their lives would be endangered from the gang members. Based from the research the arrests do not reveal the current state of Hells Angels since the arrests were made based on the information provided by the informants. The informants can only give information leading to arrests of the key masterminds leaving the small gang members who will later rejuvenate to a fierce gang.

By making the arrests of Hells Angels gang, the police cannot manage to completely cripple the operations of this gang since few people and communities where the gang has committed criminal activities will be willing to testify against them when they taken for trial. The arrests are only targeting active gang members leaving the humble less active members whereas this group can emerge to become a much stronger gang.