CITY'S STREET GANGS JUST KEEP MULTIPLYING

They Grow Dope, Sell Coke, Use Guns, Knives Or Hitmen To Halt Opposition

Ten years in the trenches, riding herd on Vancouver's violent street
gangs, has left Det. Doug Spencer with the kind of despair that comes
from trying to push water uphill.

"I was almost running in sand," said Spencer, who recently left the
gang squad to join the Vancouver police youth squad.

"We'd catch these guys and, of course, the courts would give them
nothing. I thought, it's better to be pro-active and try to get to
some of the youth to try and enlighten these kids," he told The
Province yesterday.

He offers a short list of the street gangs that are terrorizing the
Lower Mainland.

UN GANG

"They have a complete propensity for violence. If you cross them,
they'll shoot you.

"They've actually been going at it with the bikers for a couple of
years out in the Valley there. The Hells Angels want nothing to do
with them. The [Angels] don't want to get down in the dirt with them.

"The UN are on their way up and they have huge numbers" -- 100
members and 100 associates.

HELLS ANGELS

"The Hells Angels have arrived. They're all millionaires."

Once the major crime group in the marijuana trade, the Angels are
struggling to find new markets for their illegal crop.

"There's so much marijuana out there that there's a lack of a
customer base for them [in B.C.]."

With relatively few full-patch members at the top -- less than 100
scattered in a handful of chapters across B.C. -- they employ
"prospects," "hang-arounds" and "friends of the club" to do most of
the dirty work.

INDO-CANADIAN GANGS

"They seem to be made up of five or six individual cell groups.

"One group will sell coke. One group will do marijuana grows.

"They're all friends and associates.

"If push comes to shove, they would all come together and fight whomever."

Spencer estimates their numbers at roughly 200.

VIETNAMESE GANGS

"They're all over the [marijuana] grow business.

"A lot of the Vietnamese who came here are farmers. They know how to
grow stuff, plus they are in all the trades -- electricians --
they're hard-working people."

Spencer said out of 283 grow-ops busted by Vancouver's Green Team in
a recent year, 250 were run by Vietnamese.

He estimates their ranks at 300 to 400.

INDEPENDENT SOLDIERS

"They are an East Van-based Indo group.

"The UN and the Independent Soldiers don't like each other. They've
had a few shootings downtown, rivalling each other. They're basically
competitors."

There are "about 100" of them.

LATIN-AMERICAN GANGS

"They're more of a street gang, just clearly for the rep.

"They sell a little dope, but they're more into the real gangster
street culture where if you look at me wrong, I knife you or shoot you.

"Combined, there are maybe 100, but quite young, sometimes still in
high school. But not very organized."

BIG CIRCLE BOYS

"They control about 80 per cent of the heroin that comes into Vancouver.

"If you confront them, they bring in a hitman from the Orient. He
does the killing and he's back in Hong Kong the next day. You'll
never catch them.

"They control about 95 per cent of the loan-sharking in Vancouver.
They're around the casinos all the time, those guys."

Spencer put their numbers in the hundreds.

"They have hundreds of associates. They use younger guys to collect
the gambling debts.

"All the gangs have jumped on this debt-collection by doing these kidnappings."