EASTERN CRIPS LAND IN CALGARY

Gang Members Figure Out There's Money To Be Made In Oil-Rich Province

A growing tide of criminal gang members from Ottawa have headed west
over the past year, looking for new business in Alberta.

With a market full of young, cash-rich customers who want to party
hard, it makes dealing crack cocaine in Wild Rose country a textbook
lesson in supply and demand.

Sgt. Anthony Costantini, of the Ottawa police guns and gangs unit,
says it isn't going to stop anytime soon.

"The bottom line is they are going out there to make money," he says.
"And there's lots of money to be made." He estimates at least 20
members of street gangs from Ottawa's south-end have left town over
the past 12 months -- many of whom are associated with the
Ledbury-Banff Crips, whom police have tied to a recent shooting on
Walkley Road, among other crimes.

Police say these gang members have had little trouble drumming up new
business on new turf -- the problems, so far, have come with staying
out of trouble with police.

It's not the first time that Alberta has seen a unpopular wave of
migration to its cities.

Former Calgary mayor and Alberta premier Ralph Klein once famously
said Calgary was suffering from "Eastern bums and creeps" who were
driving up the city's crime rate during the early 1980s.

Staff Sgt. Monty Sparrow heads up the drug squad for the Calgary
Police Service. Since last spring, Calgary has become "a more
lucrative market for cocaine," he says, and has seen out-of-town gang
members move in to grab a piece of the market.

"We're seeing more Eastern Canadians coming in and we were aware that
there were individuals coming in from Ottawa as well." Edmonton
Police Service Staff Sgt. Kevin Galvin says he knows of specific
cases where Ottawa gang members are operating out of parts of
Edmonton, Fort McMurray and Edmonton.

"What's really interesting is the mobility of the gangs we've been
dealing with in Edmonton and Alberta," Staff Sgt. Galvin says. "They
drive in, they get on planes ... it's not that much of an anomaly."
He says it is hard to know exactly how big the market is.

Staff Sgt. Sparrow agrees: "It's tough from a police perspective to
say how much cocaine there is in the city because we just don't
know." Among the cocaine busts his unit made last year, Staff Sgt.
Sparrow says they once found 40 kilograms of cocaine in a vehicle
from Vancouver.

This is typically the way cocaine makes its way into Alberta: It's
driven in along the highway from Vancouver, and gets distributed by
dealers who take it to their local markets.

In Edmonton, Staff Sgt. Galvin says a single kilogram of cocaine
sells for $120,000.

Calgary is the main hub from where dealers, including those who have
moved there from Ottawa and Toronto, obtain cocaine -- both powder
and crack -- for other Prairie cities.

Staff Sgt. Sparrow says Calgary has yet to see problems with rival
gang members in the ways that other cities, like Toronto, have seen
in recent years.

"We don't have turfs in Calgary, which distinguishes us from other
communities in Canada," he says.

"They have anonymity here in this city and they thrive on that. We
don't see gang grafitti, we don't see gangs wearing colours, we don't
see territorial wars. We have a completely different kind of gang
here." It is his belief that Ottawa gang members have stayed under
the radar, and the problems they have caused pale in comparison to
the homegrown ones Calgary is facing. But he admits it is a concern
that these imported gang members may bring more of the same problems
to Calgary.

Staff Sgt. Galvin says he expects the gangs will remain relatively
peaceful until Alberta hits a downturn and it gets harder to find business.

Sgt. Costantini says gang members that have made their way to Alberta
bring problems simply with their presence.

"They make their bed out there, they sleep in it," he says. "They've
experienced problems out there. Calgary has had a few murders out
there, and some shootings, gang-related." Last October, Calgary
police got a 7 a.m. call about a shooting in the southeast part of
the city. The victim, a man in his 20s, had been shot near two
elementary schools.

Children on their way to school that morning had to walk on one side
of the street to bypass the crime scene, along with its trickling
trail of blood.

Among the arrested parties were Ottawa's Ahmed Zalal and Calgary's
Abdulaziz Abdullah -- both men had their charges stayed. The pair
have since been charged in a shooting earlier this week in a Tim
Hortons parking lot on Walkley Road.

Mr. Zalal, Mr. Abdullah and three other men were charged with
attempted murder, aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited
firearm, possession of proceeds of crime, and possession for the
purposes of trafficking.

All five appeared in court yesterday, via video from the
Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, but their appearance was put over.
They will next appear in court via video on Jan. 18.

In November 2004, when Mr. Zalal was 18, he and five other men were
charged in connection with gang activities in Ottawa's south end. One
was his brother Mohamed Zalal. Less than two years later, Mohamed
Zalal, who was known to police as a member of the Ledbury-Banff
Crips, was found dead in a field in Vars on Aug. 19, 2006.