SOLICITOR GENERAL TO TAKE AIM AT GANG PROFITS

Victoria set for record year auctioning items seized via the
province's proceeds of crime legislation

The B.C. government plans to increasingly hit Lower Mainland gang
members in the pocketbook, according to B.C.'s solicitor general.

"We're going to ramp up civil forfeiture here in B.C. and put more
resources into civil forfeiture proceedings," B.C. solicitor general
Kash Heed told Business in Vancouver in an exclusive interview.

A key target will be marijuana grow-ops. Experts estimate that B.C.'s
marijuana trade employs 150,000 people and generates double the
roughly $3 billion that BCStats says forestry annually contributes to
the provincial economy.

In November 2007, Burnaby RCMP became the first B.C. police force to
successfully navigate the B.C. Supreme Court process and win the right
to seize a residential property because it had been used in an illegal
activity. The house was sold using a conventional real estate broker
instead of being auctioned off.

Eight vehicles have been forfeited so far. Three of them have been
sold and four are scheduled to be put on the auction block later this
month. The other vehicle is still being processed by the police. Heed
envisions an increasing number of the car auctions.

All proceeds from sales, he said, will be used to combat gang activity.

B.C.'s proceeds of crime legislation, the Civil Forfeiture Act, allows
Victoria to appeal to a B.C. Supreme Court judge for the authority to
seize homes, cars and other property that criminals have bought with
money generated from crime.

The program started in June 2006 and by March 31, 2007, it had
produced $609,000 in provincial-government revenue.

Annual proceeds from seizures jumped 462% to more than $2.8 million
the next year. They slumped to $2.1 million in the fiscal year that
ended March 31, but are set to grow again.

Victoria has generated $1.7 million in proceeds of crime seizures
during the first five months of the current fiscal year and is on
track to generate $4.2 million by the March 31, 2010, year-end.

"We need to take away proceeds that gang members are deriving from
their crimes, arrest them, throw them in jail and make sure they stay
in jail," Heed said.

He stressed that police are not going to penalize landlords who
perform proper due diligence yet inadvertently rent their homes to
marijuana growers.

Nor does B.C.'s top cop want police to use scarce resources to arrest
casual marijuana smokers.

"We need to make sure that we go after the gang members,
organized-crime syndicates and organizations in a very, very
aggressive manner," he said.

Heed told BIV during an exclusive hour-long interview that he has had
plenty of run-ins with organized crime.

Before he was elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview, he spent 30
years in policing, working his way up through the Vancouver Police
Department before becoming the first Indo-Canadian police chief in
Canada when he took the reins in West Vancouver.

Heed said he has been in restaurants where gang members flashed hand
gestures at him that indicated they were going to shoot him.

Braving that intimidation has become second nature, although he said
he is concerned about his family's safety.

The 53-year-old is a first-time father of a 20-month-old girl.

Heed fidgeted with two BlackBerry devices that were on vibrate mode
and revealed that the second prong of his anti-gang strategy is to
invest in children.

"I really want to stress this," he said. "If we want to get ahead of
this problem, we have to invest in kids at an early age." .