Getting the Goods a Dangerous Game

Smuggling Their Profitable Cocaine into British Columbia Is a Risky
Business for Gangsters

Deep in the jungles of Peru or Colombia, a kilo of cocaine can be
bought for as little as $3,000.

By the time the lucrative white powder makes the 7,000-plus-kilometre
journey to the streets of Vancouver, a kilo is worth as much as $30,000.

It is that huge increase that fuels the greed of B.C.-based crime
groups, who have developed sophisticated north-south networks to
smuggle coke into Canada and their currency commodities -- marijuana
and synthetic drugs -- south.

Most major criminal gangs here get their cocaine from Los Angeles-area
distribution centres run by Mexican cartels, who sell it for $17,000
to $20,000 US a kilo, says Supt. Pat Fogarty of the Combined Forces
Special Enforcement Unit.

That means the B.C. gangs must make their own transportation
arrangements from L.A. to Vancouver, clandestinely crossing the
Washington-B.C. border.

Some Canadian drug-smuggling gangsters use brokers to get the cocaine
into the U.S.

"Some may have a good contact that actually lives down in Mexico ...
Some may have someone living there six months of the year to take care
of the coordination," Fogarty said. "Some fly off and live in other
parts of Central America for the purpose exclusively of being a
contact to arrange things. It is common.

"It depends on how connected you are. Some people can only go through
distribution centres in L.A.," Fogarty said.

That is exactly what happened when Fraser Valley smuggler Daniel
LeClerc was nabbed with 144 kilos of coke in September 2006.

LeClerc was piloting a 1973 Cessna from Calgary when he landed in
Grand Falls, Mont. He told a U.S. customs officer there that he was on
his way to Las Vegas, even though he had filed no flight plan.

After he took off again, U.S. authorities tracked his route using
radar. He passed Vegas and headed on into Whitefield Airport in L.A.

He parked the Cessna in a hangar. As Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents clandestinely observed, he drove off in a white
Cadillac sedan and returned a while later in a black BMW.

"Agents watched LeClerc unload black luggage from the trunk of the BMW
and place it into the Cessna," U.S. court papers said.

He flew off again, but was forced to land at a small northern
California airport because of a fuel gauge problem. It was there that
law enforcement moved in and confronted the B.C. man. He told them he
was carrying either money or drugs, but didn't know which.

"LeClerc then stated he was scared of the organization and wanted to
talk," an indictment in the case said.

The group he said he feared was the United Nations gang. He admitted
to making 12 previous trips between California and Canada.

"LeClerc identified Clay Franklin Roueche as being one of the persons
who orchestrated the cocaine importations into Canada."

The interception of LeClerc launched the Combined Forces Special
Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) investigation into the UN's drug-trafficking
activities.

Roueche was charged last year in the U.S. after being intercepted en
route to meet with his man on the ground in Mexico -- Ahmet (Lou)
Kawaach -- a former B.C. resident deported from Canada. Kawaach and
fellow UN gangster Elliott (Taco) Castaneda were gunned down in the
Mexican city of Guadalajara in July 2008 in a drug-related targeted
hit.

Fogarty said LeClerc, who remains in a U.S. prison, would have
obtained the cocaine from an L.A. distributor of a Mexican cartel.

Other B.C. gangs have also been caught red-handed in the
U.S.

Rob Shannon was sentenced in Seattle in March to 20 years for leading
the transportation division of an international drug ring working for
the Hells Angels in B.C.

U.S. authorities seized 1,300 pounds of cocaine and 7,100 pounds of
"B.C. bud" and $3,517,230 US as part of the probe.

While some B.C. crime groups broker through L.A. or Mexico,
better-connected gangs can buy direct in South America, Fogarty said.

The advantage of direct buying is the price: They can get the cocaine
for between $3,000 and $6,000 a kilo "depending on how far into the
jungles you go," he said.

The disadvantage is the difficult challenge of getting the product
thousands of kilometres across several borders.

Right in the middle of the drug route is Mexico's cartel war, which
has resulted in more than 7,000 murders since 2008. The Mexican
government has deployed more than 36,000 soldiers in the most violent
regions of the country in an attempt to halt the war.

That has pushed up the kilogram price of cocaine, forcing some B.C.
crime groups to get more creative and produce more synthetic drugs,
said Supt. Brian Cantera, who heads the RCMP's regional drug section.

"The impact that the drug war has had, in terms of our region and
Canada, is simply this: It has made cocaine less attainable or not as
easily attainable and as a result of that it has driven the price up,
albeit that price seems to have subsided [lately,]" Cantera said. "It
has forced some of these crime groups to become more active in other
areas -- such as clandestine lab production of synthetic drugs. That
is the real impact of it."

And B.C. specialities -- ecstasy and crystal meth -- have been
exported far and wide, Cantera said.

They are produced here in larger quantities than elsewhere because
"our precursor laws are not as stringent as those in the U.S."

The chemicals needed to make those products are being legally imported
into Canada in large quantities, so "these crime groups have reached
into those areas to further their profits," Cantera said.

Police have intercepted synthetic drugs from B.C. in Australia, Japan,
throughout Europe and across the U.S.

Just on Friday, two B.C. men were sentenced to life in prison in
Australia for smuggling more than $130 million worth of ecstasy and
cocaine hidden in computers into the country.

Dale Christopher Handlen, a father of three, received a life sentence
with no parole for 22 years, and his associate Dennis Paul Paddison
got a 22-year sentence with parole eligibility after 14.

It is not considered that the Mexican violence has led to the increase
in gang violence in B.C., although inter-gang rip-offs of cocaine and
marijuana are always a source of tension.

"To say that their war is having a direct impact on the violence, I
don't think so. It has made the market more difficult to obtain
cocaine," Cantera said. "Some of the individuals who are involved in
drug trafficking have had to find other means to support that income."

Smuggling techniques have evolved over the years along the north-south
route. Police have seen all modes of transportation -- from tunnels,
to airplanes and helicopters, to ships, to Ski-Doos, and even hockey
bags slung over shoulders for clandestine cross-border treks.

But the basic commercial trucking system is proving to be the most
lucrative and easiest way for organized crime to get their products in
and out of Canada, Fogarty said.

"What has really gotten better is the movement of product through the
trucking industry. Years ago, it used to be that you would have a
dirty truck driver that worked for a perhaps a legitimate company. But
now there are just tons of these guys out there that augment their
living by picking up their fresh produce from L.A. and throwing in 100
kilos of cocaine."

And with thousands of trucks crossing the U.S.-Canada border daily,
most don't get caught.

Moving smaller amounts of cocaine more often makes economic sense to
the criminals who risk smaller financial losses if a shipment is
intercepted.

"You are bringing in smaller amounts because it is coming in every
week or every three days, you could have it coming in every day if you
wanted. That is how sophisticated it is."

If a large quantity is intercepted -- like 100 or 200 kilos on a
commercial truck -- it is probably a shared load, Fogarty said.

"There may be three or four people who have gone through a trucking
broker and say, 'Okay, I want my 40, I want my 60, I want my 30' and
the trucker dispatches a guy who is down there and says, 'Okay, I've
got four orders for you.'

A spinoff industry in B.C. is the construction of highly sophisticated
secret compartments in commercial vehicles.

Specialists can earn $50,000 a truck to create the compartment and it
is legal to do so unless police can prove the tradesperson had the
intent to participate in a criminal scheme.

Fogarty said some of those discovered have been unbelievably complex
containers.

"You have to turn the radio on, push this button, push that button and
all of a sudden a hydraulic compartment opens up. That's how it is
now. We need an expert to come in and figure it out," he said.
"They'll have it so you can never get it open, and it will be lined
with that special cloth so that X-rays don't show anything. They even
use masking agents so dogs can't detect anything," he said.

Police in both the U.S. and Canada have had success in intercepting
shipments and charging gang members.

The recent Roueche guilty plea was considered a sign of the strength
of the case against the crime boss, which included evidence from
police on both sides of the border.

But Fogarty said he is still worried about the long-term societal
impact in B.C. of the growing influence of gangs and crime groups.

"Bullying is just learning how to be a gangster. It is power. They
want to be powerful people. And power, by fear," he said. "It is a
dirty business. It is a really, really dirty business."