POLICE FEAR GANG WAR OVER POT

Price Drop Expected to Ignite Violence Between Crime Groups

Police fear a recent drop in the price of marijuana in B.C. could lead
to increased gang violence as rival organized crime groups battle for
control of the province's $6-billion pot trade.

Inspector Paul Nadeau of the RCMP's Coordinated Marijuana Enforcement
Team said B.C.'s rapidly expanding marijuana trade has been relatively
stable for the past several years, with rival gangs sharing the
trade's immense profits.

But recent police intelligence indicates the wholesale price of
marijuana has dropped dramatically in recent months, from its normal
level of $2,000 to $2,500 a pound to as low as $1,500.

And with fewer profits to go around, Nadeau said, police are bracing
themselves for a turf war.

"If they make less money next year, they'll be trying very hard to
bring it back to where they were. And they're going to have to
eliminate some competition to do that," Nadeau said. "We may well see
some things take place that clearly indicate to us that there are turf
wars starting to surface. We may see some violence. That's quite likely."

There is also concern that violence could hurt innocent
bystanders.

Several innocent people in the Lower Mainland have already fallen
victim to mistaken "grow rips" -- in which criminals attempting to
steal marijuana plants hit the wrong address.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, police say, the province's marijuana
trade was dominated by outlaw motorcycle gangs like the Hells Angels
and a smaller number of independent, "mom-and-pop" operations.

But in the mid-1990s, according to police intelligence reports,
Vietnamese gangs began to make substantial inroads into the trade.

Since then, Vietnamese gangs have come to dominate the province's pot
trade, especially in the Lower Mainland.

That dominance was highlighted in a recent study by the University
College of the Fraser Valley that looked at all marijuana police files
in the province from 1997 to 2000.

In 1997, five per cent of marijuana growing suspects identified in
Vancouver were of Vietnamese origin, the study found.

By 2000, they made up 87 per cent of all suspects.

The trend was the same, if less dramatic, for the province as a whole
- -- with the percentage of Vietnamese suspects rising from two per cent
to 39 per cent over the same three-year period -- a nearly 20-fold
increase.

And, according to police, Vietnamese gangs have only further
consolidated their hold on the province's marijuana trade.

Sgt. Gord Friesen, head of the Surrey RCMP drug section, said about 90
per cent of the suspects arrested for marijuana growing in his city
now are Vietnamese.

Even when they don't make an arrest, police can usually tell which
crime group a grow operation belongs to just by looking at the growing
techniques being used -- Hells Angels prefer a hydroponic water bath
system and Asian gangs grow pot in soil.

Police say Vietnamese gangs have become increasingly sophisticated and
systematic in establishing growing operations.

Often in concert with corrupt real estate agents, the gangs purchase
or lease houses that meet their specific needs -- ideally with a
chimney, for venting out fumes, and unfinished basements to make
wiring up the operation easier.

Then, dedicated crews -- usually including a professional electrician
- -- go out and set up the growing operation.

"You'll see an electrician come in with a number of individuals with
electrical equipment and they will work day and night as quickly as
they possibly can to get it up and running," said Friesen.

The gangs then typically recruit recent immigrants to tend the plants
in exchange for living in the house rent-free.

A separate team of harvesters then comes every few months to take the
plants.

Friesen said police believe dozens of separate Vietnamese gangs each
control a network of between six and 25 growing operations.

"They're highly organized and structured," he said.

According to an RCMP intelligence report produced two years ago,
police had some concerns that the rapid takeover of the pot trade by
Vietnamese gangs could lead to conflicts with biker gangs.

"There were, as expected, some violent clashes, but so far the two
organizations appear to have opted for respective tolerance," states
the report, completed in November 2002.

But it warned that there was no way of knowing "how long this tacit
peace agreement will last."

Nadeau said it appears motorcycle gangs have largely ceded the job of
growing marijuana to the Vietnamese gangs, instead taking on a greater
role as brokers -- buying and selling marijuana in large quantities,
or trading it for cocaine.

"You have different groups acquiring a level of expertise in a certain
area and they work together to get the product to consumers," he said.

But Nadeau said it's unlikely that cooperation will continue if the
drop in price means there are fewer profits to share.

"There's enough money to go around [now]," he said. "When that starts
to change, and the market starts to suffer, there's going to be
certain groups undoubtedly who are going to be wanting to steal the
share that's presently controlled by other groups."

Nadeau said the recent drop in pot prices is due to a number of
factors.

The first is that increased security at the U.S. border since the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has made it more difficult to smuggle
marijuana south -- meaning B.C. has been flooded with excess product.

And the other major markets for B.C. "bud" -- Ontario and Quebec --
are increasingly producing their own hydroponic marijuana.

In the past, Nadeau said, B.C. produced well over half of all the
marijuana in Canada. Now, while B.C. still produces more than any
other province, its share has dropped to about 40 per cent.

"My personal belief is that over time we may see more marijuana grown
in the east than here, simply because the market in the east is much
larger than here," he said.

Nadeau said B.C. bud has also lost its competitive
advantage.

B.C. marijuana has a reputation for being more potent than that grown
elsewhere.

But Nadeau said hydroponic pot, no matter where it's grown, is
essentially all the same.

And Nadeau said pot growers from other provinces and states aren't shy
about passing off their product as B.C. bud -- even if it's not.

"It's got a good reputation, so they're just using the same
terminology and you really can't tell," he said.

Police have estimated the value of B.C.'s marijuana industry at about
$6 billion a year -- making it the province's most lucrative crop.

Nadeau said the marijuana export trade has become the number-one
money-maker for organized crime groups, who use profits from the trade
to finance other ventures, such as the importation of cocaine and guns.

"It's becoming more and more apparent that every organized crime group
is looking to grow-ops to generate money that supports other criminal
activity," said Nadeau. "It's become their money machine."

Det. Jim Fisher, a Vancouver police department expert on Asian gangs,
said even Chinese gangs such as the Big Circle Boys, which
traditionally focused on importing heroin into B.C., are getting
involved in pot.

"The profit is as good as heroin," said Fisher. "I don't think people
understand how big it is. It's changed the dynamic of organized crime
here."

One recent intelligence report estimated that a typical
marijuana-growing operation offers a 55-per-cent return on investment
in three or four months -- the average time it takes for plants to
mature.

Fisher said B.C. marijuana has three grades -- Single A, Double A and
Triple A -- with the latter used for the export market.

He said police have seized B.C. bud from as far away as San Antonio,
Tex. -- where marijuana labelled as Northern Lights was being touted
as B.C.-grown marijuana.

Nadeau said while police in B.C. bust about 1,500 growing operations a
year, they have had less success in identifying the bigger players in
the pot trade.

"Police are running around kicking in doors, seizing plants and
arresting the people at the scene, who may not be the people running
the show," he said. "We want to change the focus . . . [to] the big
picture and the people who are controlling the industry."

But Friesen, who oversees a seven-member dedicated marijuana "Green
Team" in Surrey, said it is difficult to strike a balance between
longer-term investigations that may catch bigger players and
responding to residents' demands to shut down the operation in their
neighbourhood.

"We're trying to take off the individuals who are responsible for many
grows, but at the same time we have an obligation to our community to
root out the more everyday complaint," he said.