Investigators specializing in the fight against organized crime in Quebec raided the residence of Gilles Lambert, a member of the Hells Angels of Montreal, Tuesday evening, in Saint-Hyppolite, in the Laurentians, north of Montreal.
According to our information, this search is part of a major investigation by the National Organized Crime Squad (ENRCO) which targets a drug trafficking network active in the greater Montreal area.
Lambert is the fourth member of the Hells Angels of the Montreal section to receive a visit from the police as part of this investigation, after Martin Robert, Stéphane Plouffe and Michel Lamontagne in recent weeks.
In addition to the residences of these four bikers, the sleuths also raided the house of Francesco Del Balso, a former lieutenant in the Montreal mafia, sentenced to 15 years in prison in the wake of the Colisée investigation, and now associated with members of the group of Martin Robert, according to the police.
These are searches under investigation and no one has been arrested and charged so far.
Gilles Lambert, 67, was once part of the hard core of the Rock Machine, opponents of the Hells Angels during the biker war which left 160 dead and as many injured from 1994 to 2002.
Towards the end of the conflict, the Hells Angels offered him and other members of the Rock Machine to join their ranks, presumably because they feared that the Bandidos would settle in Quebec according to the ex-member of the Hells Angels and collaborating witness Sylvain Boulanger.
Gilles Lambert is a respected and influential member of the Montreal Hells Angels and has long-standing relationships with several criminal organizations in the city.
According to the police, he is particularly active in sports betting, loan sharking and fraud.
In 2008, during the Diligence investigation into the infiltration of the masonry sector by the Hells Angels, SQ investigators had observed a meeting between him, the Hells Angels of Trois-Rivières Normand Marvin Ouimet and the clan chief of the mafia Agostino Cuntrera assassinated two years later.
Most recently, in May 2020, members of the Montreal City Police Service shadowing caught Lambert during a summit meeting with fellow Montreal Hells Angels Francois Vachon, gang members Frantz Louis (since assassinated) and Atna Onha, and a man linked to Lebanese organized crime, Joseph Chamai, in a Laval park.
In addition to the ongoing narcotics investigation, ENRCO suspects Francesco Del Balso and his supporters of being behind the attempted murder of Leonardo Rizzuto, youngest son of late Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto, on March 15. last on Highway 440 in Laval.
Del Balso would have ordered this attack in response to two attempted murders of which he was the victim last fall and winter.
The ENRCO, which is headed by the Sûreté du Québec, has the mandate to fight against the heads of organized crime in the province.