Close to 60 Hell’s Angels have been arrested in a nationwide operation that saw police act on 80 search warrants in an operation targeting the international group. Five of the arrests were of foreigners - three Germans, one English and a Finn.
This mega-operation by the Central Department of Criminal Investigation, coordinated by the National Counterterrorism Unit of the Judicial Police, involved more than 400 inspectors and included arrests for criminal association, robbery and attempted murder.
Both Portuguese and foreign bikers were targeted in the largest action ever taken against the Hell’s Angels group, based mainly in Faro and Lisbon.
It is recalled that in March, a dispute between two rival groups - the Hell’s Angels and the Red & Gold - resulted in six injured in a restaurant in Prior Velho, Loures.
The former leader of the National Front, Mário Machado, who leads the rival bikers’ gang, Red & Gold, said the community, "was already waiting" for these searches, since the Hell’s Angels are associated with, "arms trafficking and drugs.”
A Judicial Police statement revealed that the operation resulted in "dozens of detainees" as the National Counter-Terrorism Unit, "unleashed a vast operation with a view to the complete dismantling of a violent criminal gang," and included arrests in Porto, Aveiro, Lisbon, Almada, Setúbal and Faro.
Founded in the USA in 1948, the Hell’s Angels group has five chapters in Portugal - Porto, Lisbon, Cascais, Margem Sul and Algarve. It is an organisation considered to be dangerous and which has a worldwide history of violence and involvement in the drugs trade. Hell Angels have been in Portugal since 2002.
The reason for the raids and arrests is a justifiable fear, backed up by phone tapped evidence, that the annual Faro bike-fest between 19 and 22 July, will be the stage for violence as rival gangs settle disputes.
