Peter Edwards Crime, Published on Fri Apr 19 2013
Escalating Mexican cocaine cartel violence is claiming the lives of increasing numbers of ambitious Canadian mobsters, an RCMP internal report says.
The previously secret report says ultra-violent Mexican cocaine cartels are pushing their influence into Canada. It raises fears that this could mean exporting feuds north as well, with possible danger to the general public.
Many names in the report have been redacted for privacy or investigative reasons. It does note the presence in the Mexican underworld of an Ontario group that is suspected in at least one unsolved GTA gangland-style murder and another in Montreal.
“The Canadian-related violence occurring in Mexico may represent a reverse order of events in which Canadian criminal disputes and retaliatory actions are making their way South,” states the report, obtained by La Presse newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Additionally, that cartel influence is being exerted on Canadian criminal groups from within Mexico resulting in an imposed allegiance before returning Canadian operators to Canada.”
In increasing numbers, Canadian organized crime groups are choosing to deal directly with Mexican drug cartels, the report states. This allows them to eliminate the middleman and increase their profits.
“There are regions of lawlessness in Mexico where, despite efforts by authorities to rein in the violence, criminal enterprise has become an almost intractable aspect of Mexican society,” states the report.
“This may be part of the attraction to Canadians involved in the illicit drug trade, who have for decades travelled to Mexico for pleasure and presumably as part of their criminal activities,” the report continues.
The RCMP suggests that a drug war in Mexico and tight U.S. border surveillance is pushing Mexican drug traffickers to turn to Canada.
The report notes that at least nine Canadians “with extensive criminal associations” were shot or killed in Mexico between 2008 and 2012.
Most of the report deals with criminals from B.C., shot as Canadian gang violence spills south.
“An escalation in murders and shootings within the criminal element in British Columbia in 2007-2008 paralleled with reporting of brutal and extreme levels of violence in Mexico have raised concern of Mexican criminal influence in Canada,” the report states.
“Investigations into criminal connections with Mexico, including the possibility of cartel presence in Canada have further aggravated these concerns. The criminals profiled in this report were involved in gang and other crime-related activity in Canada, and were members or associates of organized crime groups that are presently engaged in a violent feud that that is affecting communities and public safety in B.C.”
The report cites potential concerns for public safety in Canada, if cartel influence pushes into Canada.
Among those killed during the time period were Gordon Douglas Kendall and Jeffrey Ronald Ivans, both of Kamloops, B.C., who were both shot repeatedly in the head in Puerto Vallarta in September 2009.
Both men had been well known to Canadian police.
In April 2012, B.C. gangster Thomas Gisby was shot dead at close range in front of customers a Starbucks in Nuevo Vallarta.
Salih (Sal) Abdulaziz Sahbaz, considered a top member of the B.C.-based United Nations gang, was shot several times in the head and body near Mazatlan in January 2012.
Elliott Castaneda and Ahmet (Lou) KaawachAhmet (Lou) Kaawach, both also of the United Nations gang, were slain in Guadalajara in July 2008.
Source:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/...n_mobsters.html
