 Hells Angel Yvan LeClair became the focus of investigators into guns and drugs. | A senior police inspector involved in the Feb. 22 raids that took down a network of gun and drug dealers said it was largely because of the alleged criminal activities of full patch HA Yvan LeClair. Police arrested and charged 18 residents of Ontario and Quebec yesterday with firearms and drug-trafficking offences after an 18-month long multi-agency investigation that spanned from the Greater Toronto Area to Montreal and into the U.S. Dubbed Project Silkstone, the operation landed 11,500 pills containing fentanyl, significant amounts of cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine, marijuana, 23 guns, tens of thousands of dollars in cash and casino chips, equipment to make fake identity cards, electronic equipment used to counter tracking devices, vehicles, and Hells Angels gang paraphernalia. |
 | In an unusual move, police said they made audio recordings of drug traffickers who callously admitted that the enormous profits that can be made from fentanyl far outweighs the overdose deaths that the synthetic causes. Much of the fentanyl that was seized was being sold out of Montreal. |  |
 | Drugs seized in the operation were being transported from Canada across the U.S. border, where they were sold in Connecticut. Police say some of the equipment they recovered gave criminals the ability to produce counterfeit Ontario government identification, as well as passports. One of the suspects had a fake ID lab inside his home and used a former employee of Service Ontario to obtain identification under false names. Belleville police arrested three - Blair Crawford, 36, whom police said is affiliated with the Hells Angels MC; Kevin Cox, 46, and Meaghan Cox, 19. All are charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. |  |
