Bail hearings begin for alleged Hells: "bail hearing for nine men arrested in last year's province-wide roundup of Hells Angels and their associates.
The nine, who saw their bail hearing begin yesterday at the Gouin courthouse, are among many who have sought a release since their arrests in April 2009 in Operation SharQc, a three-year police investigation that took aim at almost the entirety of the outlaw motorcycle gang's membership spread out in five chapters in Quebec.
On April 15, 2009, officers from several police forces arrested most of the 156 people named in an indictment that lists several serious charges including conspiracy, gangsterism and 22 counts of first-degree murder. The murders were carried out within the context of a bloody conflict over drug trafficking turf between the Hells Angels and rival criminal organizations that stretched from 1994 to 2002, a period commonly referred to as the biker war."