RCMP BOOSTS ITS PRESENCE OVERSEAS

Postings At Embassies: Liaison Officers To Tackle Terrorism, Organized Crime

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is placing law enforcement officers
in five more Canadian missions abroad to aid in its fight against
global organized crime and terrorism.

Liaison officers are to take full-time positions in Canadian
embassies or high commissions in Beijing, Vienna, Madrid, The Hague
and Kingston, Jamaica, Lawrence MacAulay, the Solicitor-General,
confirmed.

The RCMP, however, remains tight-lipped on details of the postings,
which significantly increase the force's international presence.

"The preference is to remain low-key on this so as to not alert the
criminal element more than necessary to our capabilities," said
Sergeant Paul Marsh, spokesman for the RCMP.

RCMP liaison officers are currently posted in 20 countries, although
the force would not identify those nations, citing a concern for
operational security.

The locations of the five new postings were chosen because of
strategic significance, Sgt. Marsh said, although the selection
criteria were withheld.

"Their function is to provide Canadian and foreign law enforcement
communities with assistance, information and co-ordinating support,
especially for investigations related to drugs, organized crime,
proceeds of crime, commercial crime and immigration matters," he said.

In each new posting, a need for a Canadian police presence is not
difficult to find:

- - The Beijing-based officer will be paying particular attention to
human smuggling by crime syndicates after waves of illegal immigrants
from China started arriving in Canada, the RCMP previously announced.
There are also significant international fraud cases involving China
and Canada.

- - Vienna has a long association as a global organized crime hub and
has been dubbed the birthplace of modern transnational crime after
the city played host to a notorious meeting in 1990 where several
crime groups from around the world planned a strategic alliance. Its
location has made it important to both Eastern European gangsters and
Italian Mafiosi.

- - Madrid may have been selected because of revelations that several
extremists from North Africa, including Ahmed Ressam, arrived in
Canada via Spain. Ressam lived for five years in Montreal as a
refugee before his arrest at the U.S. border en route to bomb the Los
Angeles airport. It has also been a favourite place for fugitives and
as a base for Spanish-speaking drug traffickers from Colombia.

- - In addition to being a major tourist destination for Canadians,
Jamaica is known as a source country for marijuana, one of its major
cash crops. Its location in the Caribbean also places it close to
some of the world's major money-laundering and off-shore banking
havens used by gangsters and terrorists to move money without
attracting police attention.

- - The Netherlands is a major transshipment point for illegal drugs.
In recent years there has been an increasing number of smuggling
cases where large quantities of the popular party drug Ecstasy were
imported to Canada from the Netherlands.

Carl Schwenger, spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said
RCMP liaison officers are placed in countries only with the approval
of the host government.

"They are liaison officers. You can't liaise unless the host
government wants to see somebody there to liaise with. They are not
sent in without the knowledge of the local government," he said.

"The police conduct international business daily -- almost as much as
diplomats do, in some instances. Diplomacy is no longer the sole
proprietary business of this department," Mr. Schwenger said.

Mr. MacAulay, who oversees the RCMP, emphasized the need for global
co-operation in his report about the federal police tabled in
Parliament last week.

"Despite the world's changed security environment, we look to the
coming months with optimism and confidence and a strengthened resolve
not to let any threat to public safety and security -- regardless of
its nature or origin -- compromise the quality of life we are so
privileged to enjoy in Canada," Mr. MacAulay wrote.

"We will continue to improve the capacity, co-ordination and
collaboration of law enforcement and security agencies, both at home
and abroad."