POLICE BUST DRUG DEAL 'CONVENIENCE STORE'

Seize Huge Stash of Weapons and Drugs

Two huge seizures of drugs and weapons suggest organized crime is
increasingly offering one-stop convenience shopping and beefing up
gang defences, police say.

City police displayed a haul Friday of a wide array drugs from two
related raids on west-end apartments.

Seized from the gang, which police declined to name, was cocaine,
ecstasy, marijuana, hash, Tylenol 3s and 4s, morphine sulphate,
codeine and meth.

Among the weapons were three AK-47 assault rifles, a tear-gas
grenade, a pump-action shotgun, five handguns, hundreds of rounds of
ammunition and three bullet-proof vests.

There was also $39,000 in cash and a banknote counting machine.

What's significant about the haul isn't its value, estimated at more
than $400,000, but the variety of drugs and the extent of the
weaponry, police said.

"The business of the drug trade is changing," said Acting Staff Sgt.
Darren Derko.

"It's not that you can just buy cocaine from this guy or marijuana
from that guy. They are starting to supply their customers with
whatever they want."

Insp. Gerry Gunn, in charge of the organized-crime drug section,
called the new approach "the convenience store of drug deals."

Derko said people in the drug trade are now handling so much money
that they see a need to protect themselves with deadlier weapons.

"If they know that the people they're dealing with are carrying
weapons, they want to be able to protect themselves as well," he
said. It's escalating. Now, in order to be involved in the drug trade
you have to carry a weapon."

He said two of the AK-47s, which have folding stocks, are the same
type of assault rifle involved in the Dec. 1 drug-related homicide of
downtown condo resident Wesal Arabi.

"Our (bullet-proof) vests won't stop this gun," he said. "Our police
vehicle won't stop the bullet."

Six of the guns that police seized Wednesday were taken in
break-and-enters, he added.

Most recent murders are probably drug-related, Derko said.

Despite the homicides, Gunn said Edmonton's economic boom has brought
a peace of sorts among rival gangs. He said the demand for drugs is
so strong that they don't have to compete for customers.

"We had a recent file where we arrested three people in a vehicle
with three handguns, all known members of different gang
affiliations," Gunn said.

When the economy eventually starts to fade, the gangs will compete
more for customers, he said. "That's when we should expect some
increase in violence." As a result of Wednesday's raids, police
charged four people with more than 100 offences.