Numerous police and international intelligence agencies classify the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) as a motorcycle gang and contend that members carry out widespread violent crimes, including drug dealing, trafficking in stolen goods, gunrunning, extortion, and human trafficking operations. Members of the organization have continuously asserted that they are only a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who have joined to ride motorcycles together, to organize social events such as group road trips, fundraisers, parties, and motorcycle rallies, and that any crimes are the responsibility of the individuals who carried them out and not the club as a whole. Members of the club have been accused of crimes and/or convicted in many host nations.
Argentina
The Argentine branch of the HAMC was established with a charter in Buenos Aires on June 16, 1999.
American Hells Angels member Paul Merle Eischeid, who fled the United States in 2007 after being charged with drug trafficking, racketeering, kidnapping and homicide, was apprehended in San Isidro, Buenos Aires on February 3, 2011 after being tracked by the U.S. Marshal Service, Diplomatic Security Service, and Interpol.Fugitive sought in Arizona slaying caught in Argentina CNN (February 4, 2011) Eischeid, along with fellow Hells Angels Kevin J. Augustiniak and Michael Christopher "Mesa Mike" Kramer, had murdered Yvonne Garcia, a 44-year-old mother of six who verbally disrespected the club and its members while in an intoxicated state during a party at the Hells Angels' clubhouse in Mesa, Arizona on October 27, 2001. He was extradited to the U.S. in July 2018 after exhausting all of his appeals in the Argentine legal system.Stockbroker by day, alleged violent Hells Angel by night: 15 years after his arrest, fugitive biker back for murder case Kyle Swenson, The Washington Post (July 25, 2018)
On May 14, 2016, three people were seriously injured as a result of a shootout between the Hells Angels and Los Tehuelches, a rival motorcycle gang with Neo-Nazi sympathies consisting primarily of active and former police officers, at a highway gas station in Luján, Buenos Aires. Two men – Los Tehuelches leader Leo Gatto, and Hells Angels president Daniel "Dani La Muerte" Díaz León, a celebrity bodyguard and television personality – were shot several times, while a woman was run over. The rival clubs were reportedly travelling to a motorcycle rally in Trenque Lauquen when members of Los Tehuelches opened fire on the Hells Angels from a van, prompting a gun battle in which around 150 rounds were fired.Salvaje tiroteo entre bandas de motoqueros en Luján: está grave el guardaespaldas "Dani La Muerte" La Nación (May 14, 2016) Ten people, including Díaz León and Gatto, were arrested and firearms were seized.Hells Angels boss Dani Death wounded in Argentine bikie shootout ABC News (May 17, 2016)
Australia
The Hells Angels expanded to Australia in 1975, initially establishing chapters in Melbourne and Sydney, and now have approximately two-hundred-and-fifty members and fourteen chapters in the country.
The club's activities in Australia have traditionally included drug trafficking, prostitution, armed robbery, arms trafficking, fencing stolen goods and murder-for-hire, but they have more recently moved into legitimate businesses such as gyms, tattoo parlours, haulage companies, and the security industry. Police allege that the Hells Angels undertake money laundering by passing money through legitimate businesses.
Austria The Austrian branch of the Hells Angels was established when the club formed a chapter in Vorarlberg in November 1975. The Vienna charter was later founded on November 23, 1985. The club has approximately 300 members in Austria.Bandidos in Österreich "gelandet" Dominik Schreiber and Raffaela Lindorfer, Kurier (July 9, 2014) The Hells Angels are classified as a criminal organization by the Federal Criminal Police Office. The Austrian Hells Angels are involved in prostitution operations, and the trafficking of cannabis and cocaine.
On January 4, 2017, Marcus Matz, the fugitive president of the Hells Angels chapter in Leipzig, Germany, was arrested when 100 police officers raided the Hells Angels clubhouse in Vienna. The previous day, authorities in Saxony had offered a €10,000 reward for information on Matz, who was wanted in relation to a shooting in Leipzig on June 25, 2016 in which a member of the United Tribuns gang was killed and two other men were critically injured.Gesuchter Hells-Angels-Boss in Wien festgenommen Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (January 4, 2017)
Belgium Belgium became home to its first Hells Angels chapter in the summer of 1997, at which time a major Belgian police inquiry into the club immediately began. In May 1999, Belgium became the first country in the world to declare the Hells Angels an illegal organization with Vincent hallez. A court in Ghent ruled that the motorcycle club amounts to a private militia – membership of which is banned under Belgian law.
On October 4, 2009, several Hells Angels and allied Red Devils performed a raid on an Outlaws clubhouse in Kortrijk. Shots were fired and three Outlaws were wounded before the Hells Angels and their Red Devils comrades fled the scene. The incident occurred after members of the Outlaws supposedly pushed over a motorcycle belonging to Red Devils president Johan F. in Moeskroen. The raid is also thought to be a part of a territorial dispute between the Hells Angels and the Red Devils on one side and the Outlaws on the other. Several months before the raid, on July 24, 2009, members of the Red Devils and Hells Angels already retaliated by setting fire to motorcycles outside an Outlaws clubhouse. Eventually six Hells Angels and two Red Devils were convicted for attempted murder and given sentences from five to twenty years in prison.
Hells Angels member Ali Ipekci shot dead Outlaws member Freddy Put, hangaround Jef Banken and supporter Michael Gerekens in an industrial zone in Maasmechelen where the Outlaws were holding an opening reception for a new tire centre on May 20, 2011. He was convicted of triple murder and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment on February 6, 2015.
In October 2014, 47-year-old British man Conrad Toland was arrested by Spanish police in Madrid and brought before the National Court in Madrid to face extradition proceedings to Belgium where he was wanted to complete a 10-year sentence for smuggling 155 kilograms of cocaine into the country from Ecuador in July 2011 inside a tuna shipment. He then supplied the drugs to the Hells Angels chapter in Bruges. He also faced charges in Belgium of membership in an armed gang and money laundering.
Canada
The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) has designated the Hells Angels an outlaw motorcycle gang.2004 Annual Report - Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, cisc.gc.ca In 2002, Crown Prosecutor Graeme Williams sought to have the club formally declared a "criminal organization" by applying the anti-gang legislation (Bill C-24) to a criminal prosecution involving the Hells Angels and two of its members, Stephen "Tiger" Lindsay and Raymond "Razor" Bonner. The prosecution team launched a three-year investigation with the aim of collecting evidence for the trial. According to CBC News, the Hells Angels had thirty-four chapters operating in Canada with 460 full-fledged (patched) members as of April 2009. According to this article, the Hells Angels had at that time fifteen chapters in Ontario, eight in British Columbia, five in Quebec, three in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba.
Denmark Formation and early rivalries
Conflicts between youth gangs from the Copenhagen districts of Amager Vest, Amager Øst and Nørrebro started to occur in the early 1970s and by the late 1970s, the Galloping Goose, Nomads, Iron Sculls and Dirty Angels motorcycle clubs united as Unionen MC before applying for membership of the Hells Angels. The former Unionen officially became the first Scandinavian Hells Angels chapter on December 30, 1980, setting up chapters in Copenhagen's Titangade and Nørrebro districts. Shortly thereafter, the Filthy Few, an Amager-based club, merged with the Nøragersmindebanden to form Bullshit MC, settling in Freetown Christiania where they benefited from the trade in cannabis products and challenged the Hells Angels for control of Copenhagen's biker scene. The two clubs would wage war against each other between September 1983 and December 1985. The Copenhagen biker war began on September 24, 1983, when three Bullshit members and a woman entered the Søpromenaden restaurant, a known Hells Angels hangout, at Dag Hammarskjölds Allé 37. Two of the three Bullshit members, Søren Grabow Grander (November 25, 1962 – September 24, 1983) and Flemming Hald Jensen (April 4, 1962 – September 24, 1983) were killed in a bottle and knife attack. Hells Angels member Bent "Blondie" Svane Nielsen was convicted for the murders. In November 1983, Bullshit president Henning Norbert "Makrellen" Knudsen (January 15, 1960 – May 25, 1984) was interviewed on the live television show Mellem Mennesker ("Between Humans"), which aired on DR TV, and stated that he would not allow an American motorcycle club such as the Hells Angels to gain control in Denmark.apart from the TV-show "Mellem Mennesker" in November 1983, parts of this TV-show were broadcast in an episode of the newer TV-series "24 timer vi aldrig glemmer" ("24 hours we never forget"). The episode's name is "Mordet på Makrellen" (The assassination of "Makrellen") Original date of broadcast December 20, 2009. Rebroadcast in DR2 several times in August 2012. Knudsen was shot and killed with a submachine gun in front of his wife Pia outside their home on May 25, 1984. At the time of his death, Knudsen and other Bullshit members were the prime suspects for the double murder of two young men (aged 16 and 20) in Amager six days before. A Yugoslavian immigrant would later be convicted of those murders, however.
The following two Bullshit presidents after Knudsen were also assassinated. Palle "Lillebror" Blåbjerg (July 26, 1959 – April 26, 1985) was shot dead at work; while delivering beers to an off-licence store in Valby Langgade on April 26, 1985, Carsten Bresløv (born June 9, 1958), a member of the Morticians who were a club affiliated with the Hells Angels at the time, entered the store wearing a mask and shot Blåbjerg. In court, Bresløv claimed to have no regrets whatsoever, apart from not having killed Blåbjerg's working colleague as well. Anker Walther "Høvding" Marcus (January 17, 1947 – December 21, 1985) was then murdered by Ole Bonnesen Nielsen and Rene Nøddeskov Ludvigsen, two members of the Black Sheep (another Hells Angels prospect club), following a Christmas party at Nemoland Café in Christiania on December 21, 1985. Lars Michael Larsen (October 16, 1965 – December 21, 1985), an innocent bystander, was also killed in this attack after being shot in the mouth. Nielsen and Ludvigsen claimed that they had shot in self-defence after Marcus had drawn a handgun first.
Bullshit MC left Christiania following Marcus' death and formally disbanded in 1988. By the end of the Copenhagen biker war, eight Bullshit members had been killed compared to one Hells Angel, in addition to one "civilian" which brought the total death toll to ten during the 2-year-four-month-long conflict. The Black Sheep later "patched-over" to (were absorbed by) the Hells Angels, while the Morticians were declined membership.
Nordic Biker War