'THE MOST UNIQUE, MOST SUCCESSFUL BUST EVER'

A wave of Hell's Angels arrests throughout Quebec on Wednesday is a
tremendous blow to the gang, says Yves Lavigne, the author of three
books on the bikers.

"I'm not very free in complimenting the police on things, but this is
probably the most unique and most successful bust ever," he said as
police announced they had arrested or sought 150 people on warrants,
including 111 full-patch gang members.

Lavigne says the arrests not only will set the gang back for a long
time, but will also dampen drug crime generally in Quebec and part of
Atlantic Canada.

"(The police have) got the major thinkers in the gang and the major
importers and the people with the international contacts," he said.

Only three to five Hell's Angels can make major cocaine deals with
sellers in Colombia, so that drug channel will be closed for a while,
Lavigne added. Since the gang controls its own labs, the arrests will
also affect the supply of all drugs, not just cocaine.

While some observers have speculated a gang war could arise out of
the ashes of the arrests, Lavigne doesn't think Quebecers need to
worry about that.

"There's nothing to fight about. The street gangs work for the Hell's
Angels, the street gangs get their drugs from the Hell's Angels," he said.

"There's no turf to fight for here. There's no one else, there are no
other organizations in Quebec that can come in and fill this void."

Julian Sher, who has written two books about the Hell's Angels,
agrees the bust hurts the gang.

"(It's a) huge blow in terms of the numbers, huge blow in terms of
the numbers of full-patch members," he said.

"I don't know of any other operation in Quebec, in Canada, around the
world, with that many full-patch members (arrested)."

Sher says the Hell's Angels will have less time for crime while
they're fighting court battles, but he says it's possible another
gang will try to fill the gap in the drug trade left by these arrests.

"Crime abhors a vacuum," he said. "Drugs aren't going to disappear
off the street. That's certainly not the purpose of these kinds of raids."

In the short-term, though, "Everybody's going to be a little nervous,
looking over their shoulder."

Lavigne says the scale of the bust shows organized crime is not invulnerable.

"Police in Quebec are now waging a 24-hour-a-day war against
organized crime, which no one else is doing in this country."