GANGS RESILIENT DESPITE JAILINGS

The violence between two rival Calgary gangs is at a low ebb with many
of the main players dead or in prison, but the groups are still
conducting their dangerous business.

The Herald counted more than a dozen men with known ties to FOB or the
FOB Killers (FK) who have been deported, are behind bars awaiting
trial or are serving prison sentences, including two recently
convicted of first-degree murder for the triple shooting homicide at
the Bolsa Restaurant on New Year's Day 2009.

Yet despite the jailings and at least 25 homicides between them, FOB
and FK have remained resilient and have found others to continue
trafficking drugs and accept the risk of going to prison or being
killed by a vengeful rival gang member.

"It'd be naive to say they all quit and went to university," said
Insp. Kevin Forsen of the Calgary police organized crime section.

Even though there hasn't been a homicide connected to the gang war in
nearly three years, authorities believe the potential for violence
still exists - and so do the gangsters themselves, considering police
continue to encounter gang members wearing body armour and arming
themselves with handguns in public.

In June, police found a loaded .40-calibre pistol in a box hidden in
the engine compartment of an SUV being driven by Roland Chin, a
veteran of FOB dating back to its beginnings a decade ago.

Chin, 28, is in jail awaiting sentence after being convicted of
weapons offences in connection with the case last month.

"The people who were willing to pull the trigger from years ago still
have that same will," Forsen said. "They're being much more careful
about it."

Public outrage following the Bolsa killings likely played a role in
curbing what had been years of bloodshed on city streets, Forsen said.

FOB members Michael Roberto and Nathan Zuccherato are serving life
sentences for first-degree murder for their role in the triple
shooting, which allegedly involved two other men still awaiting trial.

Witnesses testified Zuccherato, 25, and another man walked into Bolsa
and shot FK member Sanjeev Mann and Aaron Bendle, a drug dealer whom
they'd kidnapped the night before and forced to arrange a meeting with
Mann.

But it was what happened next that police credit with helping break
the code of silence that allowed so many previous killings to go
unpunished: Roberto, 28, shot and killed a bystander, Keni Su'a, who
tried fleeing the restaurant.

A city that might have been indifferent to gang violence up until then
- - "it's OK as long as they kill each other" - saw the gangsters'
disregard for human life extended to innocents.

"That incident was a real shock to the whole community," Forsen said.
"People realized we don't want to live in a city that tolerates that
sort of behaviour."

Most significantly for police, the revulsion extended to people
connected to the conflict.

"A lot of people involved in gang crime - it even shocked a lot of
them," Forsen said.

Indeed, it was revealed during the trial for Roberto and Zuccherato
that police had an informant with links to FOB - a drug dealer dubbed
"M.M." by the court - whose testimony provided key evidence for the
prosecution.

The Bolsa case was an important watershed for investigators, but it's
not the only reason police have been able to prevent any further violence.

In 2008, police established a gang suppression team to patrol
innercity entertainment districts, keeping watch for gang and drug
activity at popular nightspots.

As well, gang members on bail or on parole following prison sentences
are closely monitored to ensure they're following court-ordered
curfews and conditions - and they're arrested and hit with new charges
when they're not.

The kind of sustained pressure in place now didn't exist prior to
2005, when Calgary police established an organized crime operations
centre designed to co-ordinate investigations and share intelligence
among investigators.

The feud between FOB and FK has its roots about four years prior to
that, when a dispute prompted some members of the original FOB gang to
split into a rival faction that became known as the FOB Killers.

At first the animosity spawned brawls, then stabbings - and by the end
of 2002, gang members were shooting at each other in public.

On Dec. 23, 2002, FK member Michael Oduneye opened fire in a parking
lot full of Christmas shoppers at South-centre, seriously wounding FOB
member Jason Youn.

Less than a week later, someone killed FK members Linju (Billy) Ly and
Vinh Le within hours of each other.

The escalation prompted Calgary police to form a task force known as
Operation Synergy, which succeeded in temporarily quelling the
violence by sending several key figures to jail for drug and weapons
offences - but none for murder.

With its mission accomplished, however, police disbanded the Synergy
task force. When the jailed gangsters started getting out of prison,
the shootings and killings resumed at an unprecedented pace until 2009.

The added resources in Calgary have been bolstered at the provincial
level, with the formation of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams.

ALERT is an umbrella organization of more than 400 investigators from
law enforcement agencies across the province with a mandate to fight
serious and organized crime.

Considering gangs like FOB and FK have demonstrated ties with criminal
organizations in Edmonton and B.C.'s Lower Mainland, it has been
important for police to transcend those jurisdictional boundaries too.

"We've seen significant interprovincial activity between all four of
the Western provinces," said Sgt. Dave Maze of Criminal Intelligence
Service Alberta, one of the agencies that forms ALERT.

Although police have expended significant effort to prevent violence
between FOB and FK and disrupt their criminal enterprises, those two
gangs are far from the only ones causing concern for
authorities.

Maze said ALERT is tracking 115 known criminal organizations in
Alberta, and investigators continue to seize large amounts of drugs
and weapons.

Last year, ALERT operations resulted in charges against 702 people and
investigators seized 655 kilograms of harvested marijuana, 100,615
marijuana plants, 29 kilograms of cocaine and 38 illegal firearms.

"Violence isn't always a good indication of what's going on with
organized crime in the province," Maze said.

"The majority of the time, they're just ticking along, doing
business."