N.B. BECOMING HOTBED FOR MARIJUANA, FRAUD

FREDERICTON - New Brunswick's drug trade is on the rise, sparked by an
increasing number of marijuana growing operations, a new report on
organized crime said Wednesday.

The report, the first public one released by the Criminal Intelligence
Service New Brunswick, also shows that the province has one of the
country's highest rates of fraud.

In 2003, for example, 200 New Brunswickers were victims of identity
theft, where criminals gain access to personal and banking information
to drain accounts and run up big credit card bills. The losses
totalled $261,000, the report said.

The capital city of Fredericton saw a 43-per-cent increase in fraud
cases for 2003 over the previous three-year average, and Miramichi's
numbers rose 60 per cent compared to the average rate over the
previous five years.

Partly as a result of those cases, New Brunswick has now pulled even
with British Columbia in terms of fraud crimes per capita, and ranks
behind only Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The cases include the passing of counterfeit currency, fraud committed
over the internet and crimes related to "skimming" personal bank
information from automated bank machines, the report said. It added
that sophisticated Eastern European crime rings have been implicated
in some of the cases involving credit card and debit card fraud in the
province.

Criminal Intelligence Service New Brunswick director Mike Connolly
said the increase in marijuana cultivation may be related to organized
crime in neighbouring Quebec, which he says is the biggest supplier of
marijuana in the country.

"There is a lot of pressure in other regions - in Quebec, in
particular - to eradicate marijuana growth," he said. That pressure
may be causing criminals who would have operated in Quebec to set up
shop in New Brunswick instead, he said.

The New Brunswick marijuana operations are often run by criminals of
Vietnamese origin, the report said. Most of the drugs produced are
then smuggled into the United States.

The report also says a growing number of local organized crime groups
are illegally cutting trees from woodlots for which other people and
companies hold harvesting rights.

The New Brunswick bureau of the Criminal Intelligence Service of
Canada monitors and analyzes information for law enforcement agencies
throughout the province.