Police search an apartment building during a drug ring bust allegedly linked to bikers in Montreal on Nov. 1, 2012. (ERIK PETERS/QMI Agency)

MONTREAL -- More than 1,000 police officers from Quebec, Ontario and B.C. swooped down on a biker-linked drug ring that imported drugs from Mexican cartels, police said.

Police had arrested 103 people by Thursday afternoon in a ring that police say generated $50 million in just six months. The network distributed nearly 75 kilos of cocaine a week, Quebec provincial police assistant director Jean Audette said.

The RCMP said the gang was based on the lower B.C. mainland but had tentacles all the way to Quebec City.

Police carried out raids in the Montreal area, the Quebec City region and the Laurentians area north of Montreal. Officers also seized guns and explosives.

"We know that the ring that was dismantled was very violent," RCMP Supt. Gaetan Courchesne told a news conference in Montreal. "We know it migrated from west to east, committing numerous violent acts along the way."

Suspects face charges including drug trafficking, importation and gangsterism.

Quebec provincial police said suspects used drug-runners to import cocaine from Mexico through the United States. Other middlemen were used to launder proceeds of crime.

Officers confiscated more than $250,000 in cash and 35 vehicles, and placed liens on five homes worth a total of $1.5 million.

Dozens of people had been arrested as of 7 a.m. Thursday.

A long caravan of police cruisers made its way to a Montreal police booking centre in the city's north end.

A series of raids, aided by the gangsterism law, decimated the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine in Quebec beginning in 2001.

The gangs shifted operations to Western Canada, and have recently been reorganizing in Quebec.