SANTO DOMINGO.- The newspaper Winnipegsun.com says the motorcycle gang Hells Angels, have made the Dominican Atlantic resort town Cabarete their home in the Caribbean. “They're impossible to miss, right from the moment you set foot in the small village of Cabarete.”

The Canadian newspaper says the members of the gang -turned underworld crime organization- are seen on the streets, in restaurants and stores. “Even half-hidden by bathing suits, on the beach. You see the same words over and over again: Hells Angels Quebec.”

It said the members of the notorious network's Quebec chapter's “have literally taken over this small town of 15,000” and have even managed to get a street named after them.

Their presence in the country dates back to the mid 1990s in Puerto Plata and Sosua, when the Canadian Mounted Police, in collaboration with Dominican authorities reportedly conducted raids to arrest members of the gang who were fugitives wanted that country.

“A Sun Media team spent a few days incognito by their side, bearing witness to their influence on the area,” Winnipegsun.com says, adding that the Hells Angels were in particularly large numbers last week, as they celebrated the accession of the local Los Barracos gang to the rank of Hells Angels prospect,” the news site said.

It said gang members “partied in a large red-and-white fortified bunker, which it describes as being similar to their former headquarters in Quebec,” with “Canadian Hells and Dominican Republic flags are floating side by side.”