BIG BUST WON'T REALLY MAKE A DENT IN TRADE

In terms of the number of people charged, it was a huge drug
bust.

Last week city police announced that they had charged 51 people with
dealing drugs after a three-week operation with the wince-evoking code
name Project Geld.

In all, 120 charges were laid: 44 counts of trafficking, 18 counts of
possession for the purpose of trafficking, 43 counts of possession of
the proceeds of crime and 19 other charges. Police also seized $14,500
in cash and six vehicles.

All in all, it's a pretty impressive box score for the
cops.

But when you look at the small amount of narcotics seized, you get a
better picture of just how sophisticated drug-dealing operations are,
and how cagey the street dealers' puppetmasters have become.

A total of 205 grams of cocaine was seized, along with small amounts
of marijuana, crystal meth and dilaudid. The coke's value on the
street is just under $25,000, a negligible sum given the massive
amounts flowing into the city each month.

But that's the way the major players in the drug trade have designed
it -- the little guys take the fall while the big fish just keep doing
business.

The people caught up in Project Geld are alleged to be
"dial-a-dopers." They do business on cellphones or pagers, which are
usually stolen or pay-as-you-go so they can't be traced back to them,
should they fall into police hands.

Their customers call them, place an order, and wait for the
dial-a-doper to show up on their doorstep or pre-arranged meeting
spot, make the deal and split up. The actual transaction takes seconds.

Staying on the move this way makes it extremely difficult for police
to catch them. And when they do, the payoff is minimal. Dial-a-dopers
never carry more than a few grams at a time.

"My rule used to be, never let them carry more than they could swallow
if they had to," an ex-dealer told me.

He used to have dozens of dial-a-dopers delivering his product all
over the city.

A lot of guys in the business, he said, would recruit underage teen
addicts to be their runners. They work cheap, often being paid in
drugs, and were easy to intimidate. Often they're pressed into service
to pay off drug debts.

They'd also tell the kids that if they did get caught, they were
juveniles carrying a relatively small amount so at worst, they'd only
get a slap on the wrist.

What they don't tell them, however, is that they're on the hook for
any dope that goes unaccounted for. It doesn't matter if the police
seize it , the dial-a-doper gets robbed or they simply lose it because
they're high themselves. The courier will pay for it -- one way or the
other.

The former dealer said back in 1991, Edmonton's native gangs were
among the first in Canada to try dial-a-doping.

Other criminal outfits, he explained, already controlled the drug
trade in nightclubs and it was too easy for police to bust dealers
selling out of houses.

"They saw what was being done in the States and decided to try it
here. Soon you could order dope just like a pizza," he said.

"The other (gangs) saw how successful it was and pretty soon everyone
was doing it."

Call it the dark side of Edmonton's entrepreneurial spirit.