NEW ORGANIZED CRIME UNIT ON TAP

CALGARY - The Alberta government is creating a provincewide police unit to
battle organized crime by gangs that have infiltrated cities throughout the
province, Solicitor General Heather Forsyth announced Thursday.

''This is a dark day for members of organized crime in our province,''
Forsyth said. ''We will not put up with another drive-by shooting, another
child hooked on meth or another senior victimized by fraud.

''We are going to keep our communities safe.''

She said the province will more than double the $2.4 million it now spends
each year to fight organized crime and street gangs because the problem has
spread beyond Calgary and Edmonton to smaller cities, including Red Deer,
Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie.

The unit is to target rival street gangs, who have taken their violence to
the streets where several public shooting deaths have occurred in the last
few years.

Crime generally has recently decreased in Alberta, but police fear the
approximately 25 organized crime groups in the province are expanding their
activities to include methamphetamine labs and marijuana grow-operations.

Police say the gangs, which are battling over territory turf, are also
extorting, laundering money, hiring hit men for murder, smuggling
immigrants, stealing citizen identities and manipulating stock markets.

The new police unit is to complement rather than replace those in existing
police departments that already investigate organized crime and gangs.

The new initiative was developed by several police chiefs throughout
Alberta.