New figures shed light on police efforts to thwart Ontario outlaw bikers

Ontario’s biker enforcement unit laid more charges and seized more items last year than the previous two years combined, new statistics show.

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The Ontario Provincial Police-led unit laid 271 charges last year, up from 202 the previous year and significantly higher than 28 in 2022, according to the OPP’s recently released annual report for 2024.

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The joint forces unit, which is made up of officers from nearly 21 police forces and law enforcement agencies provincewide, made 270 seizures last year, up from 168 the previous year and 74 in 2022.

The head of the biker enforcement unit warned that outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) pose a threat to community safety and clashes between rival groups often result in violence.

“We regularly investigate violent incidents that occur as a result of gang rivalry, including assaults and arsons,” OPP Det.-Insp. Scott Wade said in an email to The Free Press.

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“OMGs have vast resources at their disposal and their criminal activity in Ontario includes drug trafficking, fraud, counterfeiting, money laundering, contraband smuggling, extortion, human trafficking, violence and illegal gaming.”

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The OPP report highlights several large-scale investigations targeting bikers, including two from Southwestern Ontario.

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Project Referee led to charges against five men and the seizure of 17 guns. The investigation was launched following a robbery on Sept. 21, 2024, in Cambridge involving members of the Hells Angels, their support club the Red Devils and another biker club, police said.

Court documents identified motorcycle vests as the stolen items. A police source said the other club involved was the Loners.

Investigators carried out searches in Cambridge, Waterloo, Seaforth and Whitby, seizing 17 guns, ammunition, nine magazines and three Hells Angels vests, police said.

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Among the weapons seized from a Huron County home was a get-back whip, a prohibited weapon Wade warned at the time is becoming increasingly popular among outlaw bikers.

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Traditionally made out of braided leather and equipped with a quick-release attachment on one end, get-back whips were used by motorcyclists to increase their visibility and keep other motorists a safe distance away. But it’s the metal object attached to the other end of the whip that makes them dangerous and illegal.

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Another investigation, Project Medieval, was launched after police were alerted to an illegal after-hours club and determined it was linked to the Hells Angels, police said.

Police searched four locations in Kitchener, including an after-hours bar and the Hells Angels clubhouse, and seized a handgun, a kilogram of cocaine and alcohol, police said. Five people were charged.

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There’s believed to be 10 outlaw motorcycle clubs operating in Ontario, with 73 chapters with 1,000 members. A new club was added to the mix in the summer, when Harley Davidson Guindon, the former vice-president of the Brooklin, Ont., chapter of the Hells Angels, relaunched Satan’s Choice, a club his father founded in 1965.

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Since then, Satan’s Choice has opened chapters across Canada, most recently in Abbotsford, B.C., and in the United States.

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Experts have warned that bikers, who have a history of working with street gangs to traffic drugs and weapons and target rivals, are changing the way they operate, shifting to money laundering, cybercrime and recruiting networks of criminals and professionals working in sectors such as banking, law enforcement and government.

“The landscape is consistently changing,” Wade said. “And the OPP-led biker enforcement unit continues to proactively monitor criminal activity associated to OMGs with our partner agencies and will conduct multi-jurisdictional criminal investigations and gather intelligence on substantive criminal offences.”