Ivy, I really appreciate your informed posts and I generally agree with you but only partly here. I do believe this has a lot to do with drug trafficking and routes. I agree with you that much of the drug trafficking is for the Canadian market. I disagree with your assertion that very little of it flows south to the US.
The Canadian US border is porous. There are old country roads you can take into the US from Canada without seeing CBP or a stop. Those routes have been used by LCN since the late 50's. That border is so porous, very few seizures have occurred even during the height of the French Connection, Pizza Connection and before.
From some of my readings, outside of what comes from Mexico, there are traffickers bringing in marijuana, cocaine, Meth and heroine on fishing vessels on both the Atlantic and Pacific. These fishermen make pick ups and transfers hundreds of miles out to sea and bring them back to smaller ports in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The Canadian ports are lightly policed compared to the US, especially the smaller fishing ports. From there, the drugs are trucked into Montreal and Toronto, for Canadian distribution and consumption, but also to fulfill US market needs, especially New York.
Gaspipe Casso evidently used this technique in his trafficking according to the Carlo book. Every now and again you will read about a fishing vessel getting busted, usually at the dock in a small port town, because someone informed. Rarely does the coast guard make a bust outside of the Gulf of Mexico.
Keep in mind that most heroin in NY is not the dark Mexican stuff, but the white Asian stuff.
I never said the US/Canadian border wasn't porous. If you look at the DEA reports, there are plenty of busts/seizures involving OC groups trafficking drugs across the border. I said that, when it comes to Italian OC, actual examples of drugs being trafficked southward, from Canada to the U.S., are rather rare. There is little evidence to support the assumption that the mob guys in Montreal or Toronto were ever trying to tap into the NY market in a big way. Or that the ongoing killings up there have anything to do with a struggle over who will control that pipeline. A pipeline into and distribution in Montreal or Toronto? Yes. But not really from there into New York or elsewhere in the U.S.
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