The city of London, Ontario, Canada was established in 1826, and has since grown into Canada's 11th largest municipality. The city has had a long history of organized crime, with several high-profile incidents occurring there over the years. In 1901, London's first MP, John Carling, attributed the growth of London to three factors: the establishment of regional courts and administration in 1826, the arrival of the military garrison in 1838, and the arrival of the railway in 1853. From its position along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, the city has attracted investment in commerce, culture and manufacturing, and attracted criminal enterprises to exploit that growth.

London has seen the establishment of Canadian chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, planned bank robberies, and in modern times, the establishment of a variety of crime syndicates, street gangs, outlaw motorcycle clubs and nationalist groups.

Overview In the modern era, three major Motorcycle Organizations have chapters and operate businesses in London, Ontario. The Hells Angels, the largest outlaw motorcycle club in Canada, have an estimated 13 full-patch members and 100+ affiliates in the city. The Gate Keepers Motorcycle Club, a Hells Angels support club with chapters in Nova Scotia and Ontario, also have two chapters in London, the Middlesex County chapter and the Forest City chapter which was established in 2021. The Outlaws Motorcycle Club, the longtime rivals of the Hells Angels, had called the city home for years but was forced to shut down their London chapter in 2002. In recent years the Outlaws have been successful in reestablishing a presence in London, reopening the chapter in the early 2010s. A support club, the Filthy 15 MC was created in 2017, to support the Outlaws in London. While membership in the two main clubs, Hells Angels and the Outlaws, remains relatively stable, they oversee rapid growth in support clubs or puppet clubs. These support groups carry out crimes, provide protection and groom new recruits. Organized crime analyst James Dubro notes that members of support clubs are typically younger than their counterparts in the Hells Angels and the Outlaws clubs.

Along with other organizations, they supply a stream of illegal contraband and narcotics to multiple localized street gangs operating throughout the city. Often involved in the drug trade, gang members and affiliates are often suspects in break-ins, vehicle thefts, street rip robberies, stabbings and assaults. Gang members have been linked to several shootings over the past two decades. Despite a lack of news coverage in the 1990s and early 2000s, the street gangs began to gain notoriety in the 2010s with high-profile killings. A turf war broke out in 2012 between the London chapter of the Hells Angels MC and a local Street gang the "FU Crew", who were backed by the London chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. This resulted in the deaths of several individuals, and the arson of several biker and gang owned businesses and vehicles. When looking at the city's street gangs, Biker and organized crime analyst Yves Lavigne stated, "These gangs are very dangerous. There are different levels of gangs. If the police are giving you the names of 'the seven', they must be the high rollers. These are the guys with guns and contacts with guys from outside London with access to the drugs," Lavigne said. Most gangs in the city had managed to remain "under the radar" up until this point. Lavigne would add No one had any idea about these gangs until this week, except for the people in the neighbourhoods they terrorize.

"The Seven" refers to the 7 largest street gangs monitored by the London Police. EOA (East of Adelaide) is a conglomerate of street gangs and individuals involved in the narcotics trade that are linked together by London Police Service into a single entity known as EOA. It is the city's largest organized crime group as a whole. The "Seven" also include the Kipps Lane Crew(KLC), White Oaks Crew (WOC), H-Block, The Black Shirts (BSG), First Division and Ontario Wide Crew (OWC). A lead investigator for the LPS had this to state: London's 11 known street gangs aren't necessarily divided along geographic or ethnic lines. Most are multi-ethnic and multicultural. One might have roots in a neighbourhood but members tend to join from all over.

On October 7, 2011, London resident David Arbuckle was shot and killed on the corner of Wellington and Hill streets. It was not known if the victim had any gang associations, but the shooter was linked to the notorious EOA gang. The events in 2011 and conflict in 2012 resulted in the creation of the London Police Services "Gang unit". From the years of 2013 to mid-2015 they made over 400 arrests, laid 270 charges relating to narcotics, seized over 40 weapons and made 375 other criminal charges against members of the city's organized crime. The city has also had previous association with Hamilton-based Musitano crime family. There are also several Neo-Nazi and Nationalist groups in the city such as the Black Shirts Gang (The Black Shirts) and the Canadian Brotherhood(CB). The city's overall hate crime rate was higher (6.4 incidents per 100,000 population) than in Ontario (5.3) and Canada (4.9) in 2018. Between 2014 and 2018, the rate of police-reported hate crime in London increased by 78%, a notably larger increase compared with Ontario (+10%) and Canada (+33%). The city has also seen several notable incidents such as the first bank robbery in Canada to use a motor vehicle and an air plane respectfully, to escape the scene, the Ontario Biker War and the London Conflict.

Early history Bank robbers The city of London, Ontario was home to the first ever bank robbery in Canada where an automobile was used by the robbers to escape from the scene of the crime in December 1920.Publisher=London Free Press|Date=July/29/1931| Another milestone in Canadian history was reached 11 years later, in 1931, when London was home to the first ever bank robbery where a plane was used to evade authorities successfully. To this day, London police still do not know who is responsible for either robbery.

Motorcycle clubs For much of its Post-War history, London, Ontario has been referred to as a "biker town". Several motorcycle clubs have operated in London and the surrounding area. While not criminal organizations on paper, they frequently have elements that commit crimes. The Queensman Motorcycle Club was founded in Windsor, Ontario in 1956. The Queensmen had established a chapter in London during the 1970s, and had multiple run-ins with law enforcement lasting until the late 1980s. On 1 July 1977, the Satan's Choice London chapter "patched over" to join the Outlaws. The journalist Jerry Langton described London as "very much an Outlaws town" in the 1980s and 1990s. The centre of the Outlaws in Ontario was Hamilton, as Mario Parente, the president of the Hamilton chapter, was considered to be the toughest Outlaw in Canada; the London chapter, however, was regarded as the second-most important Outlaw chapter in Ontario. London was a "very rich territory for drug sales", which the Outlaws had a monopoly on in London. London was also an important centre in the "meth alley" running along the 401 highway that connected methamphetamine manufacturing in the rural areas of southwestern Ontario to Toronto and to the Midwest.

The Annihilators Motorcycle Club operated in the nearby hamlet of Iona Station, and was frequently referred to as the London Annihilators, due to the fact the club did business and was actively involved in incidents in city during the 1980s and 1990s. In June 1999, the Annihilators would "patch-over" to the Loners Motorcycle Club, a Canadian-based motorcycle club with chapters located in the United States, Europe and Australia. The Loners frequently operated in London, as they owned several businesses in the city. When the London chapter of the Hells Angels was formed in 2001, most of its members came from the Loners during a split. On 12 April 2001, the Angels opened a chapter in London and promptly informed the Loners that they did not have the right to use Ontario on their patch, as the Loners were only a "regional" club.

Timothy Appleby of the Globe and Mail reported in 2004 on the Hells Angels' push into south-western Ontario, during what would come to be known as the Ontario Biker War: "From 1999 to 2002, when the conflict reached a peak, beatings, brawls and shootings became common". Appleby further wrote about the Hells Angels in London: "The Hells Angels nonetheless succeeded in becoming the dominant organized criminal presence in the area, as they have across Canada. Although their formal presence in London dates back only three years, the Hells Angels now have extensive interests in the city's strip clubs, tattoo parlours and half-dozen exotic massage joints (called "rub 'n' tugs" by the locals). They or their associates hold interests in at least two car dealerships. They're deeply involved, police say, in intimidation and extortion. And as in the rest of Ontario, they do a booming trade in cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and prescription drugs...But for all their wealth, the Hells Angels' hold on the city's underworld is still founded on the threat of mayhem. In contrast to nearby communities such as Kitchener-Waterloo - where the Angels vigorously promote themselves as good citizens - intimidation, beatings and other violence, much of it drug-related, are common...Violent incidents - as many as four a month - go unreported because the victims are too terrified of the Angels to complain, sources say."

The other members of the Loners joined the Bandidos Motorcycle Club on 22 May 2001. The Bandidos also operated several businesses and were involved in several incidents in London, such as their participation during the incident at the 2002 London Motorcycle Show. They were also involved in the infamous Shedden Massacre that occurred in 2006, which resulted in the Bandidos Canada disbanding, and the rebirth of the Rock Machine. Most of the trial took place in London's courthouse.

Major events

History of the London Klan

The history of the Ku Klux Klan in London, Ontario began on May 18, 1872. When the former leader of the KKK in South Carolina, J. Rufus Bratton, arrived in London, Ontario under the alias of James Simpson. Bratton had fled America due to a lynching and other crimes that he had committed as a member of the klan in South Carolina, and was at the time on the US federal government's most wanted list for the murder of Jim Williams. He was assured by a fellow southerner, Gabriel Manigault, who had relocated to London, that he would be safe in the city, but that he needed to be watchful of American agents who sometimes entered Canada. Aside from the initial alias he arrived with, few other security precautions were taken.West, Jerry Lee. The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877. McFarland (2002), p. 126-130