GANGSTERS LEAVE ALBERTA AS SLUMP HITS DRUG TRADE

Street Dealers Back In Ottawa

Street gang members who moved west to chase a dream of dealing drugs
and getting rich are heading home, Ottawa police say, forced back by
tough times in their cutthroat trade.

A steady flow of these street-level entrepreneurs left their
hometowns to deal drugs in red-hot Alberta, but as the overall
economy has worsened, so, too, have gang members' fortunes.

Now there is less money to be made and increased competition for the
business that remains.

Additionally, gangs have seen the murders of their members by
presumed rivals and have come under increased police scrutiny since
moving west.

Ottawa police Staff Sgt. Chris Renwick said these combined factors
have brought some very familiar faces back to the nation's capital.

"We have seen a slowdown on the people going there and also we're
seeing people returning," he said.

In some cases, these street gang members have had to phone police in
Ottawa to tell them they have returned because of release conditions
they must follow, he said.

In January 2008, the Ottawa Citizen reported at least 20 Ottawa
street gang members had migrated to Alberta in search of better
business prospects in 2007.

Police said many held connections to the Ledbury-Banff Crips -- the
long-established Ottawa street gang that has seen three of its
members deported from Canada for criminal activities in the last year.

Dr. Cathy Prowse, a professor, gang expert and former police officer,
said it is natural for gang members to go where the money
is--especially when times get tough.

"These guys, they'll go somewhere else, lay low and some of them will
even engage in other types of activities," she said.

"They branch out and they go to other things that they think will
keep them afloat for the time being,"Prowse added, listing robberies,
extortion and protection rackets as examples of activities street
gang members might pursue during the current economic downturn.

Whatever their reasons for leaving the West, police in Alberta have
also noticed the change of address.

Edmonton police Insp. Kevin Galvin said a sagging provincial economy
has left Alberta's migrant street gangs fighting for their share in
an ever-tightening marketplace.

"The migration of other groups here into Western Canada is
slowing,"he said. "But the ones that are here, or the crews or the
groups that are here, are trying to strengthen their business
processes because they've got a bit of a foothold here and they want
to try to keep it."

In addition to a tougher domestic marketplace, street gangs have also
faced economic challenges from a Mexican drug war that has pushed up
production costs, including the price of importing cocaine, he said.

They've suffered credit problems, too: Those street gangs that
borrowed drugs when money was flowing freely through the oil-rich
economy must now pay back their lenders.

"Business is different for them right at the moment, because they
can't just focus on providing their product," said Galvin, who is
part of the organized crime branch of Edmonton police.

"They now have to provide their product, protect their consumer base,
keep their people in line, stop from having a hostile takeover
occur," he added.

Galvin said the gangs in much of northern Alberta-- Edmonton, Fort
McMurray and Grande Prairie--are more likely to be from the Toronto
area, while those in Calgary tend to have stronger Ottawa connections.

Calgary, of course, has seen its share of street gang violence
involving former Ottawa residents, including shootings and other incidents.

In the past couple of years, the killings of "three Ottawa-area men"
in Alberta --two in Calgary and one in Edmonton --have caught the eye
of police in both provinces, Renwick said.

This type of violence prompted Calgary police to crack down on these
street gang members' activities. Last fall, police announced they had
broken up a local drug-dealing network that was controlled from
Ottawa and had been tied to at least four separate shooting incidents.