GANGS INFILTRATING CANADIAN AIRPORTS

Hundreds Of Airline Employees Suspected Of Smuggling Drugs And People,
Report Says

Canada's airport security has been compromised by hundreds of workers
who have used their security clearances to smuggle drugs and people
into the country, according to a new police report.

Project Spawn, a two-year RCMP inquiry into hundreds of police
investigations at Canada's eight largest airports, has identified
nearly 60 active gangs infiltrating airports, concentrating on
Toronto's Pearson International Airport, Montreal's Trudeau
International Airport and Vancouver International Airport.

The Globe and Mail has obtained a 22-page declassified summary of the
Project Spawn conclusions, which show the Mounties reviewed files from
2005 to 2007 and concluded that hundreds of people were suspected of
involvement in smuggling during that time - 298 of whom were current
or former airline employees.

Not all the cases culminated in charges and convictions.

The report says that federal laws prevent federal agencies from
sharing information about such chases that would allow better
screening of airport employees.

Project Spawn was completed in the spring, and its findings were
released by the RCMP to Senator Colin Kenny this month.

The senator said the conclusions buttress those made by the
national-security committee he chairs, and are likely to soon be
reiterated by a federal commission of inquiry report on the 1985 Air
India terrorist bombings that killed more than 330 people.

"Where you have fertile ground for organized crime, you also have
fertile ground for terrorists," Mr. Kenny said.

The Mounties "have come up with very significant numbers of people who
meet the definition of organized crime within the airports," he said,
adding, "It's significant these people are able to operate with impunity."

The senator then expressed a harsh criticism of Transport Canada,
which he argues should inspect airport workers on their way into and
out of work. "There's no question the police involved feel that this
could be shut down, and shut down firmly, if Transport Canada got off
its ass."

A spokeswoman for Transport Canada, Nicole McNeely, said last night
that it has reviewed the report and is "developing a comprehensive
response to the issues raised."

Significant busts in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg during the study
period appear to have helped winnow the ranks of problematic
employees, along with high turnover. Even so, the RCMP says 68 of the
problem employees were still working at airports at the conclusion of
the study.

A criminal record doesn't preclude getting an airport job, and the
RCMP says a "lack or resources" and "technological impediments"
frustrate screening processes. The Project Spawn summary says laws
prevent the Canada Border Service Agency and Transport Canada from
fully sharing employee information with police.

Apart from corrupt airport workers - a small percentage of 88,000
people who work in Canada's airports - the Mounties flagged another
thousand outsiders as individuals intent on "infiltrating the airports
to facilitate criminal activity."

These are allegedly agents of 58 crime groups, who police say work at
"corrupting existing employees or by placing criminal associates into
the airport work force." Some crime gangs are said to plant spouses
and relatives, whereas others have their members get hired for airport
jobs.

Project Spawn reveals the drug most frequently imported illegally to
Canada is khat -a leafy East African plant with narcotic qualities.
Usually, it comes from Britain, where it's legal. More troubling were
dozens of conspiracies to import cocaine, usually from the Caribbean,
and often arriving in Vancouver. Toronto was the most popular
destination for heroin, usually from Latin America.

Canadian courts have revealed some of the finer details of smuggling
schemes. A groundbreaking 2006 crackdown against mobsters associated
with the Rizzuto crime family revealed the extent that the Mafia had
infiltrated Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport
using airline employees, a catering company and baggage handlers to
import cocaine.

A 400-page RCMP affidavit filed in court revealed the gang relied on a
corrupt customs agent. Usually, passengers arriving from overseas fill
in a declaration card and pass through a primary inspection line,
where a customs agent stamps the form. Depending on the stamp, some
passengers submit to luggage inspection.

But drug traffickers got a supply of pre-stamped declaration cards
from a corrupt agent that enabled their cocaine couriers to avoid
inspection.

The Montreal file even shows that during a debt dispute between rival
Quebec gangs, the RCMP secretly recorded mobsters musing about buying
$400 plane tickets so they could have a conciliatory get-together in a
departure lounge.

The reasoning was it would be a safe spot, as everyone had to pass
through airport security checks. Members of the Rizzuto crime family
plead guilty to a variety of conspiracies this fall.

BY THE NUMBERS

58

Number of organized crime groups that have infiltrated Canada's
airports

50%

Percentage of those groups that had direct links to airport
employees

1,326

Number of known or suspected smugglers that were identified by the
RCMP

298

Number of suspects who were airport employees