B.C. organized crime investigation prompts raid on Langford clubhouse

The simultaneous searches got underway across the B.C. capital region around 8 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2024, when an RCMP emergency response team vehicle punched through a security gate at the clubhouse of the Savages Motorcycle Club in Langford, B.C. (CTV News)

Dozens of heavily armed police officers from multiple agencies raided the clubhouse of a Langford, B.C., motorcycle club Wednesday, one of several Greater Victoria properties caught up in a drug trafficking and organized crime investigation.

The simultaneous searches got underway across the B.C. capital region around 8 a.m., when an RCMP emergency response team vehicle punched through a security gate at the clubhouse of the Savages Motorcycle Club in a largely residential neighbourhood.

Cpl. Nancy Saggar of the West Shore RCMP declined to confirm whether any arrests were made during the co-ordinated raids, saying the months-long investigation is still unfolding.

"We're going to be here for a number of hours," Saggar said outside the clubhouse at 2775 Spencer Rd. "Right now we're still in the middle of searching this property."

The local RCMP detachment has been leading the investigation, with support from B.C.'s anti-gang task force, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.

The Langford clubhouse property is within a few hundred metres of an elementary school at one end of the block and a middle school at the other. Saggar said the safety of the students at those schools informed the timing of the raid.

"We took that into consideration," she said. "This search warrant was executed prior to school start time just to make sure the students are safe."

The CFSEU has accused the Savages of being a support club for the Hells Angels in B.C. The agency did not respond to a request for comment on the clubhouse raid Wednesday.

"We believe that they are affiliated to organized crime, specifically an outlaw motorcycle gang group," Saggar said. "We are trying to determine a connection to drug trafficking and we believe that a connection does exist."

'This is suburbia'

Neighbourhood resident Becky Paquette described the Savages clubhouse as a typically quiet and respectful neighbour.

"You never really hear loud music," she said outside the property Wednesday. "On the weekends, in the summertime, in the fall, they had their kids there and barbecues – it was kind of like a family event."

She said she was "shocked" when she heard about the raid on the property.

"They look like normal everyday people," she said of the people who hang around the clubhouse. "This is suburbia."

Investigators say they will provide more details about the simultaneous search warrants in the coming days. Saggar said that once police release the Langford clubhouse property back to its occupants, "whoever owns the site can come back in."

Last year, the B.C. government seized and later demolished a Hells Angels clubhouse in Nanaimo. Two other clubhouses owned by the group were seized by the civil forfeiture office and are expected to be sold.