WITH HELLS ANGELS LAYING LOW, GANGS LOOK FOR PIECE OF CITY'S DRUG MARKET

Aboriginal gang latest to set up shop here

Nanaimo RCMP continue to battle with organized crime as violent street
gangs infiltrate Vancouver Island, looking to take control of illegal
drug markets.

Police confirmed the presence of the First Nations street gang REDD
Alert when they the Nanaimo drug squad arrested full-fledged member
Kevin Eric John, 32, on Friday.

REDD Alert joins the Red Scorpions and other gangs that have surfaced
in the city in recent years as each group tries to control turf
formerly held by the Hells Angels. The biker gang's clubhouse was
seized in November 2007 under the order of the director of civil
forfeiture and since then the gang has seemingly lost its grip on the
drug market it once controlled.

Gangs like the Red Scorpions, United Nations and Independent Soldiers
have slowly infiltrated the city in the past few years, according to
Cpl. Mike Moyer, E Division's gang awareness co-ordinator for
aboriginal policing services.

"When there's a slowdown in the drugs on the street, gangs and other
suppliers will move in to take advantage," he said.

The integrated gang task force has been monitoring REDD Alert since it
started in Edmonton during the mid-1990s. Since then, the group has
established a foothold in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and Moyer
said it appears the gang is trying to do the same on the Island.

John was one of four people arrested Friday evening following a police
search of an apartment in the 1500-block of Boundary Crescent. All
four were suspected of trafficking cocaine. Police seized drug
paraphernalia, evidence of cocaine use, a small amount of marijuana
and REDD Alert colours at the apartment.

"Friday's arrest is not the first contact our members have had with
REDD Alert in Nanaimo but it's the first arrest that I know of," Moyer
said.

A 45-year-old woman was found in the apartment and taken into custody
and later released on a promise to appear in court on charges under
the Controlled Drug and Substances Act.

Besides John, Christopher David, 22 and Terry Aleck, a 21-year-old
woman, were charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of drug
trafficking. They have been released from custody and are scheduled to
appear in court on July 26.

Both John and one other man, whose name surfaced during the course of
the investigation but was not charged, have ties to the REDD Alert
chapter in Kamloops, said Nanaimo RCMP spokesman Const. Gary O'Brien.

"The presence of REDD Alert in Nanaimo is not surprising given the
lucrative drug market a city this size presents," said O'Brien. "These
individual would be here for no other reason than to entrench
themselves in the local drug trade through selling their product."

Like all criminal organizations, violence is not uncommon when REDD
Alert gets established in a community, said Moyer. The gang patterns
itself after some of the black and Latino inner-city gangs of Los Angeles.

REDD is an acronym and a play on words for "red Editorians
(Edmontonians) doing dirt," said Moyer.

Moyer said that though the gang has spread to B.C., "we are not yet
seeing aboriginal gang problems here that we are seeing in other
Western Canadian provinces."