CROSS-BORDER DRUG, GUN SMUGGLING RISING, REPORT SAYS

Ottawa -- Canadians send them dope and Americans send back
guns.

That is one of the conclusions of the Criminal Intelligence Service of
Canada, which said in a report yesterday that gangs are increasingly
smuggling drugs south to the United States and returning with
everything from Saturday-night specials to AK-47 assault rifles.

The service predicts that this cross-border traffic will escalate as
organized crime branches out from traditional alcohol and tobacco
smuggling to satisfy a growing demand in Canada for illegal firearms.

The service issued its warning about U.S. guns moving into Canada
after recent complaints by American officials that Canada is not doing
enough to enforce the country's drug laws.

In a report yesterday, the service makes it clear that the contraband
trade is not all one way. "The United States is the primary source of
illegal weapons that are brought into Canada," it says.

Some highlights:

Police caught 64 people and seized 243 guns in a recent undercover
operation in Ontario.

Smugglers in Nelson, B.C., regularly barter narcotics for guns in the
United States and then bring the weapons back to supply
white-supremacist groups.

Street criminals in Ontario commonly buy smuggled small-calibre
handguns, the so-called Saturday-night specials, while assault rifles
and automatic shotguns are the weapons preferred by outlaw biker gangs
and militia groups.

The report says weapons are sometimes broken down, smuggled across the
border, and reassembled in Canada. Bonded truckers have been
intimidated into transporting guns, cash and drugs into Canada from
the United States.

Aboriginal territories, particularly the Akwesasne Reserve straddling
Ontario, Quebec and New York, are significant conduits for guns coming
into Canada, the report says.

The service, which acts as an intelligence clearing-house for 370
Canadian law-enforcement agencies, concentrates its work on organized
crime.

The report says Asian gangs, outlaw bikers, Russian and Eastern
European criminal organizations and the Sicilian Mafia all remain
active in the drug trade in Canada.

The Asian-based gangs will try to forge strategic alliances with the
others, the report predicts. In some areas, however, violent turf wars
are bound to erupt as the Asian newcomers encroach on established
territories and drug markets.

"Asian-based criminal groups, especially the Dai Huen Jai [from south
China] and Vietnamese-based gangs, continue to pose a significant
threat to public safety across Canada," the report says.

Vietnamese groups are noted for their "extreme violence and use of
automatic weapons," it continues.

Twenty-seven people died last year as a result of the armed conflict
between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine.

"There is no doubt that organized crime is a central fact of Canadian
life, one with the potential to touch each of us, sometimes with
disastrous consequences," RCMP Commissioner Phil Murray says in an
introduction to the report.