Numerous police and international intelligence agencies classify the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) as a motorcycle gang and contend that members carry out widespread violent crimes, including drug dealing, trafficking in stolen goods, gunrunning, extortion, and prostitution rings.[1][2] Members of the organization have continuously asserted that they are only a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who have joined to ride motorcycles together, to organize social events such as group road trips, fundraisers, parties, and motorcycle rallies, and that any crimes are the responsibility of the individuals who carried them out and not the club as a whole.[3][4]
The Hells Angels have established a presence in Northeast Ohio, with chapters in Akron, Cleveland, Lake County and Portage County.[5] The first HAMC chapter in Ohio was chartered on December 16, 1967, when two clubs – the Gooses Motorcycle Club, founded in 1960, and the Animals Motorcycle Club – merged to form the Hells Angels' Cleveland faction, known as the "Dirty 30".[6] Gabriel Baird of The Plain Dealer described the Gooses as "a motorcycle gang that would in retrospect seem like choirboys" compared the succeeding Hells Angels.[7] The Cleveland charter was also the Hells Angels' first in the Midwestern United States.[8]
The Cleveland chapter is influential in the club's national organization and is reputed to be the location of the national treasury. The Cleveland and New York City chapters also govern all Hells Angels activities in the Eastern United States as well as those of chapters in Canada and Europe.[9] The Hells Angels are active in gunrunning, extortion, trafficking in stolen property and methamphetamine distribution in the Cleveland and Akron areas,[10] and have been involved in contract killings and drug trafficking with the Cleveland crime family.[11][12]