Organized crime begins using Canada

as a base for operations

ranging from drug to car theft

By Mark Heinzl / The Wall Street Journal

TORONTO - The world's gangsters are discovering a haven: Canada. Attracted by comparatively weak laws governing their activities, mobsters in the past decade have made Canada "one of the most important bases for the globalization of organized crime," says Antonio Nicaso, a Canadian authority on global crime.

Adds Jack Ramsaym a member of the Canadian Parliament: "The laws say to the professional criminal that Canada is an easy mark." Gangs are spreading into everything from narcotics to prostitution to car theft. Police say growing car-theft rings have contributed to a 79% rise in vehicle thefts in Canada over the past decade. Canada’s organized-crime wave directly affects the U.S. Police say drug smuggling into the U.S. from Canada is rampant. In recent years, Canada has become a key entry point for Asian heroin headed for North American markets, and Washington Attorney General Chris Gregoire said in May that his state is "worried about the high-quality, high-potency marijuana which is moving from British Columbia into Washington."
Phone Scams Target Americans
Numerous telephone-scam outfits "are moving operations to Canada," says Martin Biegelman, a U.S. postal inspector who tracks such fraudulent organizations. In the past few years, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia have become three of the top 10 locations for phone scams targeting Americans, he says. Crooks are fleeing the "stricter enforcement ethic" of the U.S., he says. They know that in Canada, extradition "could take years," if it happens at all, even if they are caught. Jim Fisher, a Vancouver, British Columbia, police officer on temporary assignment with Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, adds: "Canada is one of the main centers in the world" for counterfeit credit technology. "We’ve seen over and over again in the U.S. when Los Angeles and New York had a lot of problems with it, it was Canadian-Asian criminals that were running the operation," says Mr. Fisher, an expert on Asian organized crime in Canada. Not surprisingly, Visa International’s Canada unit says its credit-card fraud rate jumped 31% last year from 1996, more than double the increase world-wide, and a Visa Canada official places the blame on growing organized-crime groups. Canadian criminals also give their American cousins a helping hand. Many cars stolen in the U.S. are driven north to be exported overseas because customs-inspection procedures are less rigorous in Canada than in the U.S., say Ron Giblin, an official with the Insurance Crime Prevention Bureau in Toronto.
Last month, police broke up a car-theft ring based in Montreal, seizing 55 luxury vehicles that were to be exported to Russia, Lebanon, Africa and elsewhere.
"Virtually every major criminal group in the world is active in this country," concludes a report by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, an umbrella group for police forces across the nation Organized crime in Canada is growing "every more powerful, with an unprecedented potential for corruption," the report adds. Crime rings made up of Italians, Asians, Russians, Colombians, native Canadians and others now flourish in Canada. And these diverse groups increasingly cooperate with each other. In addition to comparatively short prison border with the U.S. and easy immigration laws. The Big Circle Boys Police say such advantages helped attract Dai Huen Jai, Cantonese for "Big Circles Boys," a gang that began in Chinese prisons. The gang has built a presence in Canada in heroin smuggling, high-tech credit-card fraud, immigrant smuggling, prostitution and car theft. With an estimated 500 members in Toronto and 250 in Vancouver, the group has contributed to sharp increase in crime in Canada, police say. And in recent years, the Big Circle Boys have been involved in credit-card fraud in California, says William Park, a Los Angeles Police Department detective.
Some Big Circle members are also involved in prostitution, loan-sharking and currency counterfeiting in California, he adds. Recent signs indicate the Big Circle Boys may be infiltrating Canada’s law-enforcement agencies, where corruption is rare. Last month, a Vancouver police officer with a special organized-crime unit was charged with leaking information to suspected crime figures and counseling a known Big Circle member to commit perjury. A Vancouver probation officer also was charged with various offenses in connection with the case, following a nine-month investigation into alleged Vancouver police cooperation with crime groups. The cases are awaiting trial.
Lax Money-Laundering Laws
Now Canada is facing greater pressure to crack down. At the Group of Seven summit meeting in May, official of other leading industrial countries singles out Canada for having lax money-laundering laws. Canada says it is developing new laws to track currency importing and require financial institutions to report "suspicious" transactions. But Canada still lacks strong racketeering laws, stiff sentences and an institution such as the U.S. grand jury to investigate suspects. These tools all encourage criminals to testify against higher-ranking mobsters, says Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Gary Nichols, who is in charge of a Toronto-area proceeds-of-crime unit, which seeks to confiscate money raised through criminal activity.

July 6, 1998