Hells Angels
International motorcycle club treated in Danish legal language as organised crime
Hells Angels (abbreviated HA) is an international motorcycle club, founded in California in 1948, which in Danish police and legal language is consistently described as an organised criminal grouping. The club established its first Danish chapter in 1980 and has since built a structure with several chapters across the country, along with a network of support clubs and prospects. In Danish case law, Hells Angels is not a legal concept in itself, but the name of a grouping whose members and associated individuals have for decades been the subject of investigations and criminal proceedings concerning violence, attempted murder, weapons possession, drug trafficking and extortion. The Danish National Police (Rigspolitiet) maintains ongoing assessments of the grouping as part of the broader biker and gang environment.
The Nordic biker war from 1993 to 1997 is the most prominent chapter in the Danish criminal history of Hells Angels. The conflict played out primarily between Hells Angels and the rival biker club Bandidos and resulted in numerous killings, bombings and attempted murders. It cost several lives on both sides and prompted an unprecedented police effort as well as political debate about biker and gang legislation in Denmark and the other Nordic countries.
In the wake of the biker war, the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) in 1996 passed the so-called biker premises act (rockerborgerloven), which among other things gave the police the power to prohibit biker and gang groupings from using specific properties as gathering places where this poses a danger to public order. The law was a direct response to the use of clubhouses by Hells Angels and Bandidos as operational bases during the conflict.
As an organisation, Hells Angels has never been banned by law or declared illegal as a whole in Denmark, but individual members and groupings affiliated with the club have repeatedly been convicted of serious crime. In a true crime context, Hells Angels is a central reference point in accounts of organised crime, internal power structures, witness-related problems and the state's capacity to prosecute closed criminal networks.
