POLICE RAID EAST EUROPEAN MOB SUSPECTS

Dozens targeted in Ontario and abroad; charges include high-tech debit-card
fraud

In one of the largest assaults on Eastern European organized crime that
Canada has ever seen, dozens of alleged mobsters were swept up in predawn
raids yesterday. In a series of co-ordinated arrests stretching from the
Greater Toronto Area to Montreal, Ottawa and Windsor, the suspects were
picked up on charges ranging from conspiracy to drug importation to
contravening the Immigration Act.

Most significant, perhaps, the allegations also encompass a sinister twist
on the fraudulent use of debit cards in a high-tech forgery operation that
police believe to be the first of its kind uncovered anywhere in the world.

"These arrests are a wake-up call, a reality check, that Canada and
especially the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe are becoming a sanctuary for
organized criminals," said RCMP Superintendent Ben Soave, who heads the
Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, a multiagency group that targets
organized crime.

"Project Osada 2 [the project's code name, taken from the Russian word for
siege] is one of the most significant Eastern European projects in Canada
and perhaps the Western world since the fall of the Soviet Union."

By late afternoon, 37 suspects had been scooped up, including their alleged
leader, Yury Dinaburgsky, 44, who was led in handcuffs from his upscale
home north of Toronto and whisked away amid a blaze of lights from
television cameras.

The men and women arrested in the other three cities were all brought to
Toronto by RCMP airplane to face charges.

Two additional suspects have also been also arrested in Seattle, and more
than 135 kilograms of steroid pills were seized in the state of New York.

Arrest warrants were issued for a further 17 suspects, including six in
foreign countries.

The charges also include nine laid under the relatively new Criminal Code
provision that makes it an offence to "participate or substantially
contribute to the activities of a criminal organization."

Police said the alleged activities targeted yesterday are a legacy of
Vyacheslav Sliva, a high-level gangster who was deported from Canada in
1997. However, they said, the alleged conspiracy was directed from the
Toronto area rather than from abroad.

Almost all of those on the police target list are emigres from the former
Soviet Union, but the group also has links to ethnic-Asian and -Italian
groups, police alleged, underscoring the increasing global trend toward
co-operation between disparate organized-crime groups.

All through the morning and afternoon, the suspects were taken to Toronto's
32 Division police station to be formally charged, and from there to
Scarborough for a court appearance.

Some appeared less bewildered than resigned.

"Why should they make this arrest? I'm not arrested every day," said Arkady
Kaplan, 40, a self-described musician originally from the Caucasus, charged
with conspiring to traffic in heroin and cocaine. He was awaiting his turn
to be booked at the police station.

By day's end, 20 of the 37 had been released on bail.

For Supt. Soave, the mass arrests represented "a victory for the public,"
and he vowed that he and colleagues "will be in their face" in their
pursuit of organized crime.

Toronto lawyer Dennis Morris said from the Scarborough courthouse that he
is representing about 15 of the suspects arrested in the sweep and that the
number of suspects and charges will create extraordinarily difficult,
complex legal proceedings.

"It's mind-boggling how one could ever defend all the individuals in one
court."

Mr. Morris said the charges are mere untested allegations.

"From the police, there's a lot of, 'We believe this, we believe that.' But
I don't think they have any real concrete proof.' "

Yesterday's crackdown was an extension of a credit-card-fraud investigation
in October that produced a series of arrests, also involving alleged
criminals of Eastern European origin.

It was during that initial investigation that police learned the group had
allegedly devised a system of doctored punch pads allowing the electronic
data contained on debit cards, including the encrypted personal
identification numbers, to be downloaded, copied and used without the
owners' knowledge.

"The banking representatives I've spoken with thus far have expressed
considerable concern about what we've uncovered," said Corporal Mel Young,
a technology expert who played a key role in the investigation.

Among the most serious of the other charges are allegations that members of
the group conspired to import and sell cocaine and the synthetic drug
ecstasy, to traffic in heroin and to commit robbery.

One member of the group, a 22-year-old Toronto woman, is also accused of
being an accessory after the fact in an attempted murder charge laid in
connection with an August bank robbery, in which shots were fired at
Niagara Falls policeman.

As well, Canada Immigration -- a component of the joint-forces group --
"has an interest" in about half of those arrested, police said.

Gene McLean, director of security for the Canadian Bankers Association,
said the arrests marked "an excellent operation; this is what good police
work is all about. Eastern European crime is pretty brutal, and fairly
effective."

He also hoped it would add fresh impetus to Canada's long-promised
money-laundering legislation, which he and police had hoped in vain would
become law this year.