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Hells Angels teams up for Barents Cooperation

Law enforcement agencies fear increased cross-border crime as Hells Angels gets a stronger foothold in the Barents Region.

The world’s northernmost Hells Angels motorcycle clubs are shoring up for cross-border cooperation. Police fears gang wars and more international organized crime.

Location

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation says criminal motorcycle gangs are moving north and expands their operations. The police fears brawls between groups like Hells Angels and Bandidos. Hells Angels have aspiration to expand to Oulu in northern Finland, in what police sources believes is a first step to shoring up its cross-border cooperation in the Barents Region.

While law enforcement brands them as outlaws, Hells Angels themselves denies such accusations.

Hells Angels already has a strong foothold in northern Norway and northern Sweden. As reported by BarentsObserver in 2009, the Luleå motorcycle club Eastside MC was accepted as fully members of Hells Angels global network. The world’s northernmost Hells Angels club in Tromsø got it’s HA charter in 2006, the portal of the club informs.

YLE’s investigative program Poliisi-TV reports that Hells Angels has also gained a foothold in the Murmansk region.

From before, Hells Angels have a club in Moscow and what they call “Hangaround and prospect charters” local clubs in Kazan and Samara, according to the list posted on the MC club’s international portal.

YLE reports about the MC gangs’ income in Finland coming from loan shark activities, different parts of the shadow economy as well as from illegal drug trading. With the foothold in Murmansk, Hells Angels are represented in all the four countries of the Barents Region.

Last November, the police in Tromsø raided Hells Angels’ club house, arrested and accused eight members of serious drug crime. The police in Tromsø told NRK that substantial amounts of drugs were brought north.