CELLPHONE A KEY COMMODITY FOR DRUG GANGS

Trafficking Takes Place Through Phone-Line Networks, Rather Than On
The Street Corner

A 10-digit telephone number is the most critical tool for front-line
B.C. drug traffickers.

The number -- usually for a prepaid cellphone purchased anonymously
- -- is what drug users call to make their purchases, and therefore the
key to profits.

Dial-A-Dope operations are the standard business model for gangs
here, according to police and former gangsters. In fact, B.C. gangs
have specialized in Dial-A-Dope techniques to the point they have
become sophisticated operations designed to evade detection from
police and trouble from competitors.

"We don't see the American model of trafficking where someone is
standing on a street corner," said Sgt. Shinder Kirk of the
Integrated Gang Task Force. "If we compare places like South Central
Los Angeles to the Lower Mainland, there it is turf-oriented. Here
it's all based on lines and distribution networks."

Police have called for greater regulation of cellphone sales to
prevent gangs from buying them undetected and in large quantities.

Many of the front-line drug groups are small -- four to eight people.
They start by getting a beat-up car and a phone and then make their
pitch to a more established gang. They pick up a small amount of
cocaine -- usually an ounce -- and they pick a location to set up their phone.

They work in teams -- two work 12-hour day shifts, the other two
cover the night shift.

They drive around their chosen area looking for crackheads and other
obvious users to create a client base. If the group is larger, the
profits have to be divided among more workers. The crew sets up a
"safe house" where they sleep when not working, and to keep their
stash of money and drugs.

A new crew usually sells about half an ounce a day, earning about
$1,000 to split among the workers.

A group hits the radar of rivals when it decides to expand, which
means it must increase its client base. At this level, groups start
arming themselves, usually with bats and golf clubs. Bigger groups
have firearms.

Preying on other gangs' client lists leads inevitably to conflict.

In a simple attack plan, a rival group will make a fake client call
and assault the crew member who shows up with the delivery.

The rival group will take the most precious commodity from the other
dealer: his phone. Anyone who calls that number will be told the line
is shut down and that they should call a new line linked to the raiding group.

The group that got ambushed may take revenge, sometimes with deadly
consequences.

Four youths gunned down in Abbotsford this spring -- Dilsher Gill,
Joseph Randay, Ryan Richards and Sean Murphy -- were front-line crew
members perceived to be earning for the Red Scorpions and the Bacon brothers.

Because of the "phone rips," street crews now send their workers out
with decoy phones while the real phone stays at the safe house. Calls
to the real phone are forwarded to the decoy phones, so business can
be conducted without the key phone number ever being at risk.

Crews worried about their own workers selling on the side for their
personal benefit hire live operators instead of "call-forwarding,"
making it harder for internal rip-offs to occur.

Mid-level drug gangs may have dozens of lines running at the same
time, earning tens of thousands a month in profits, but also often
putting them in conflict with rivals.

When Vancouver police announced in March it had arrested members of
two mid-level crime groups, Insp. Mike Porteous said much of their
violent dispute was over drug lines.

"Both these groups run drug lines in the Lower Mainland and there is
an ongoing conflict for control of those drug lines in southeast
Vancouver and other areas of the Lower Mainland and that's what funds
their activities," Porteous said.

"We have information that sometimes on the drug lines, they are
making as many as one drug transaction a minute."

The chance to make money may be great, but so is the risk. The
luckier ones end up in jail. Others, like Randay, Gill, Richards and
Murphy, end up dead. A report last month from the Integrated Threat
Assessment on Organized Crime in B.C. said most of the violence is
among those at the bottom.