More than a dozen alleged members of the Hells Angels appeared in a Toronto court today after a nation-wide raid netted hundreds of arrests on Wednesday.
Heavily-armed officers stood on guard as the suspects were lead into the courtroom three at a time.
Family members wept as they learned many of their relatives would be spending the Easter long weekend in jail awaiting bail hearings.
However, several of the 31 Toronto-area men arrested have been released on bail for medical reasons, including kidney problems and sleep apnea.
Lawyers for the accused were on hand and maintained their clients' innocence.
"Well, he's not happy. He's a man who has worked his entire life. He's worked the same job the last 19 years and he would be working if he wasn't in jail today," Daniel Kayfetz, defence lawyer for one of the accused, said outside the courtroom on Thursday.
"No, he's not guilty and he intends to plead not guilty and the matter will go before the court. Obviously nobody can be happy about being dragged into a large case like this," defence lawyer Allan Gold said of his high-profile client Don Peterson.
In another twist to the investigation, a Niagara police officer has been charged with breach of trust for allegedly leaking police information to gang members.
The officer has since been released on bail with the condition that he refrains from contacting any member of the Hells Angels organization.
Earlier, a police press conference revealed an informant from within the Hells Angels organization aided police in the investigation.
"Project Develop was an 18-month investigation that utilized a full-patch Hells Angels member as a police agent to infiltrate the Toronto downtown chapter of the Hells Angels," Ontario Provincial Police Insp. Dan Redmond said Thursday.
"Hells Angels criminal activity has been exposed by one of their own."
The probe, dubbed Project Develop, culminated in a series of raids against the Hells Angels and affiliate gangs on Wednesday.
The dramatic pre-dawn operation targeted clubhouses in Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia on Wednesday.
Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino told reporters the arrests send a message to bikers.
"We are here to shut you down. You can run, but you can't hide. And we will do all that we can, to bring you to justice," Fantino said.
In Ontario alone, some 32 raids were carried out -- at least a dozen of those in Toronto. In total, 31 arrests were made and 169 charges laid in Ontario.
Police said the raids dealt a significant blow to the organization's flagship chapter in Toronto, said to be the largest in the country.
The Toronto Hells Angels clubhouse was seized as well as $500,000 in vehicles, drugs, weapons and more than $500,000 in cash.
"This clubhouse has been used by the Hells Angels as almost a claim to that area. They've been advertising their presence quite blatantly," Toronto Police Deputy Chief Tony Warr said.
"We felt it was necessary to send the message to the community that they were no longer there," said Warr, referring to the sign that was removed from the suspected clubhouse on Avenue in downtown Toronto on Wednesday.
Raids were also carried out at clubhouses in Niagara Falls, Waterloo, Barrie, London, Hamilton, as well as Durham, Peel and York regions.
In British Columbia and New Brunswick, RCMP spokesmen confirmed that outlaw motorcycle organizations, including the Hells Angels and the Bacchus Motorcycle Club, had been targeted as part of an ongoing investigation.
A series of simultaneous raids launched by provincial police in September 2006 saw 500 officers involved in arresting 15 members of the Hells Angels.
In January 2006, police made a series of arrests focused in Thunder Bay, Ont., in which a total of 27 Hell Angels and associates were charged.
About 175 full-patch Hells Angels members -- of the 460 nationwide -- operate in Ontario.
There are 34 chapters in Canada and 16 of them in Ontario.
There are also seven chapters in British Columbia, three in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan, one in Manitoba and five in Quebec.
The arrests came nearly one year to the day that police found eight bodies of rival Bandidos gang members in a farmer's field in Shedden, Ont., just south of London, Ont.
Eight people, including a former police officer from Winnipeg, were later charged in relation to the Shedden deaths.
With a report from CTV's Chris Eby and files from The Canadian Press
