RCMP CAN'T PROBE ALL ORGANIZED CRIME CASES, CHIEF SAYS

Limited Resources Hurt Investigations

OTTAWA -- The Mounties and other Canadian police forces can deal
effectively with only one-third of the organized-crime groups they
know about, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli says.

Because of limited resources, "our best guess is we can tackle
one-third of what's out there," Commissioner Zaccardelli said
yesterday, ranking the fight against organized crime as being of
equal importance to countering the threat from terrorists. In fact,
organized-crime gangs are now in league with terrorist groups in many
instances, he told the Senate committee on national security.

But police don't have enough investigators to study thoroughly all
the gangs that they have identified, he said. "We know there are
groups we can't go after. That's a given."

Police intelligence is picking up traces of an alliance in which some
gang crimes -- "activities that have been below the radar" -- end up
financing terrorists, he said.

This trend, he said, "has the potential to cause us serious
problems." Of particular concern are organized-crime activities at
airports. The Mounties have 124 officers available for investigations
at Canada's three busiest international airports -- Vancouver,
Montreal and Toronto, he said.

But a lot of the criminal-intelligence gathering occurs at locations
away from the actual airports.

Outlaw biker gangs account for most organized-crime activity in
Canada, followed by what he described as "traditional" Mafia rackets.
Asian street gangs are also a major concern.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Hollywood films and TV
dramas have given people the false impression that organized-crime
gangs are a bunch of "folksy Robin Hoods" when in fact they are a
danger to Canadian society.

The threat of organized crime working hand in glove with terrorists
is not fanciful and the Mounties aren't alarmists, Mr. Day told CTV News.

After the budget cuts of the 1990s, Commissioner Zaccardelli said,
the RCMP is pleased the new government is pumping fresh money into
policing, including $30-million earmarked to establish an integrated
law-enforcement team to combat stock frauds and other corporate and
white-collar crime.

Big corporate crime has the potential to harm Canada's very "economic
integrity," he said, referring to wrongdoing on the scale of the
Enron scandal in the U.S.

Police and other agencies responsible for national security are
working more closely than ever before so that they don't duplicate
efforts, he said.

The RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service are to sign a
new pact next week to enhance the free flow of intelligence and to
enable better co-ordination of efforts.

Likewise, federal agencies are working more closely with local and
provincial law-enforcement services and with U.S. counterparts, he
said, pointing to the growth in the number of integrated border
enforcement teams since the terrorist attacks on the United States of
Sept. 11, 2001.