In the Halifax regional municipality, for over 20 years we did have a chapter of the Hells Angels. I believe it finally closed down around 2000 or 2001. After numerous investigations over a period of years, the chapter folded. There are still remnants of motorcycle gang activity. There are influences from Quebec. There are influences from Toronto. To my knowledge, there's only one patch-wearing member of the Hells Angels in Nova Scotia, but he has a network that he facilitates or influences in their criminal activity.
We've always historically had local people connected to gangs, such as the West End Gang in Montreal and the Italian-based organized crime throughout Ontario and Montreal, but most of our connections, in my time working intelligence over the years, were from those main groups that we would find ourselves dealing with and those were the main provinces. They had a considerable amount of influence on the criminal activity and the local people who are involved in organized crime.
The street gang is a phenomenon that really started to show its face around 2004 in the HRM. It started with ethnic groups, mainly young people who were doing robberies and swarmings, but their crimes were so bold and in daylight that it put a great deal of fear within the community around these groups.
Today we have approximately four major street gangs. One of them is interprovincial. It influences drugs and the movement of women for prostitution into Ontario. There are tentacles of that one particular group as far west as Calgary. The others are drug gangs. We've seen a lot of shootings. We've seized about 105 firearms off the streets of Halifax in my jurisdiction since January 1. We've had over 500 weapons-type calls since January 1.
It's mainly about control. It's about trying to get control of drug trafficking in certain areas of the city, and other types of reasons. Some of it is ethnic and some of it is just Caucasian, white, gangs that are fighting for control of their territory.