Organized crime Canada's Hydra

 

Tehran Times / Reuters

TORONTO - Like the Hydra of Greek mythology, Canadian organized crime seems impossible to kill: cut one head off and two will grow in its place. Canadian police, with much fanfare, arrested alleged mob kingpin Alfonso Caruana and a handful of alleged members of his Sicilian organization in mid-July.

Police believed that, after a lengthy investigation, they had broken the back of the Cuntrera-Caruana family in Canada, one of the world's largest drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. But those arrests, while an impressive success, are but a drop in the ocean and the so-called traditional, Italian- style Mafia is likely to remain the dominant force in organized crime in Canada for the foreseeable future, experts told Reuters. Business is business.

They're used to setbacks like this, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Larry Tronstad, who is in charge of the combined forces special enforcement unit that was behind Caruana's arrest. This is not the end of organized crime in Canada, Andrew Andersen, director of the North Pacific Institute of Criminology and Crime Prevention, agreed.

Organized crime in Canada is a dragon with many heads. The Sicilian Mafia, the Calabrian Mafia, known as 'Ndrangheta, and the American La Cosa Nostra all operate on Canadian soil, with business interests ranging from extortion to drug trafficking and money laundering. Three Mafias Work Together in Toronto Lee Lamothe, coauthor of Global Mafia: The New World Order of Organized Crime, says Toronto is the only place in North America where all three work together. But experts seem to agree the Sicilian Mafia is the force to be reckoned with as far as international crimes such as drug trafficking and money laundering go, while the 'Ndrangheta controls local crimes such as extortion and loan sharking.

As for La Cosa Nostra, in his book Lamothe writes that it has close ties with organized crime groups in Windsor, Ontario, and appears to be heavily involved in infiltrating the recently legalized casino gambling industry. In 1994, he writes, police in Ontario monitored the movements of several La Cosa Nostra operators in the Niagara and Toronto regions because of concerns they were setting up operations in anticipation of increased legalized gambling.

The Canadian wing of La Cosa Nostra also has ties with the Sicilians, 'Ndrangheta and the criminal motorcycle gangs, and the three Italian groups are involved in numerous cooperative ventures in apparent harmony, Lamothe says. But he told Reuters the murders last year of La Cosa Nostra Hamilton boss John Papalia and his second-in-command ruptured the link between southern Ontario and Buffalo/New York City. Southern Ontario now answers to Montreal and the Sicilians. Toronto has become a financial center where money is cleaned.

Lamothe believes the hit on Papalia was probably ordered by the Sicilians and Antonio Nicaso, who coauthored Global Mafia, wrote in a recent edition of Lamothe's newsletter that the assassination was agreed upon at a meeting in Toronto among Mafia bosses who wanted to sever one of Canada's last links to the U.S. La Cosa Nostra.

 The Toronto summit brought together Calabrian Mafia representatives and members of out-of-town Italian organized crime groups. Reportedly, a strategic alliance was formed with the aim of cutting off American influence and increasing interprovincial and international ties, Nicaso wrote. New Mob Rising One thing is certain: if the traditional Mafia is still the dominant force in Canadian organized crime, a new mob is also on the rise.

The Russian Mafia, Asian Triads, criminal motorcycle gangs all are major players in the game. But do not expect them to start killing one another any time soon, the experts say. There's never been a struggle, Lamothe said. The Cuntrera-Caruanas will launder money for anybody. It's all about accommodations, all about money. Sure, those other guys are coming in the game late, but there's room for them. The underworld is a very democratic place. For the past five years there's been a tendency toward coordination, not competition (among these groups), agreed Andersen. The Italians and the Russians work together. They exchange information and share the market without fighting.

The RCMP's Tronstad is a bit more cautious, saying police have seen no sign, in Toronto, at least, of any close association or formal agreement among the various factions. Some members of the younger mob generation will become legitimate businessmen but go on using their old techniques such as extortion to do business, Lamothe said. Andersen also sees such a trend, saying an increasing number of members of the traditional Mafia, their fortunes made, are now trying to legitimize themselves. Similarly, Lamothe warns of the emergence of what he calls the clean-faced Mafia, the movers and shakers who, he says, are the true facilitators.

Those guys operate in the overworld. Without them, the underworld would choke on its money because it couldn't move it. This highlights another reality: Canada is an excellent place for gangsters to do business thanks to lax tax laws and a charter of rights that keeps the police from prying too effectively into shady business deals. That could change soon. The solicitor general has been circulating in financial circles a document that proposes amendments to the proceeds of crime (money laundering) act. If adopted, they would effectively turn financial institutions into informants by requiring them to report any suspicious circulation of funds and punishing those who fail to do so.

Aug. 8, 1998