In March last year, about 20 bikers of the Hells Angels group invaded a restaurant in Prior Velho, near Lisbon, to attack the Red&Gold group, created by Mário Machado. The two rival groups got into a fight inside the establishment, with knives, sticks, iron bars and other objects.


This episode of violence led the police to begin a nationwide operation and to hold, in July last year, the first 58 members of the Hells Angels motorcycle group in custody.


In March 2019, the court of Lisbon held six more members in custody, and in February decided to keep 23 other defendants on remand.
In total there are 38 in pre-trial detention of the 68 defendants (one of them in Germany).


The suspects are indicted of criminal association crimes, attempted first-degree homicide, theft, assault, possession of prohibited weapons and drug trafficking.


There have been Hells Angels groups in Portugal since at least 2002. In the US, where the organisation was founded in the 1940’s with its members typically riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles, it has for several years been considered by the Department of Justice to be an organised crime syndicate.