NEW GANG EYES CITY'S DRUG TRADE

The Crew And The Renegades Have Some New Competition In Prince George.

The city's most notorious organized crime gangs are now facing a
rival known as the Independent Soldiers.

"Recently we were up in Prince George and shared our (intelligence)
with Prince George and area members," said Insp. Brent Bloxham,
commander of RCMP E-Division's gang task force.

The Renegades, according to police, were the first organized crime
group based in Prince George. They deal mostly with the massive
marijuana trade.

The Crew, police explained, are younger, more violent, and deal with
street-level drugs and prostitution. Both groups operate in concert
with one another, both answering directly to the B.C. Hells Angels,
police have said.

The Independent Soldiers are now here to do the same thing, and
appear to be aiming mostly at the Crew's territory.

"We've heard bits and pieces about them for awhile," said Prince
George RCMP Sgt. Tom Bethune, who heads the city's drug task force.
"They started out in the Lower Mainland and moved up to Kamloops and
Kelowna, now here. They are at the point the Crew was at four or five
years ago with intimidation and violence intended to take over the
drug trade, take over the Crew's business."

Bethune said there are several clusters of thugs who hang out
together, do crime together, and might call themselves a gang for
awhile but never for long without the consent of the Crew or the
Renegades. The Independent Soldiers have emerged as more than those
unofficial gangs, he said.

"The difference is when the Crew came to town they were Lower
Mainland kids that came up and took over," said Bethune. "The
Independent Soldiers are local kids, some are tied to the local fight
club scene, they are local muscle trying to prove themselves to
organized crime."

Bloxham said the Independent Soldiers are not a major player in the
provincial drug hotbed around Vancouver, but they should cause the
public in Prince George great concern because of the negative impacts
on local families, property and the economy.

"They are relatively new; we are aware of this group," Bloxham said.
"We have some information that leads us to believe they may be up in
your area. They appear to be spreading about the province. These
groups tend to do that, our intelligence is indicating, to get a
foothold in smaller towns, areas where there is a strong legitimate economy."

Danger to the public is great, even with these lesser groups, Bloxham
and Bethune explained. There are a host of known groups the RCMP's
gang task force has picked up on, and the Crew is barely on the radar
screen, but look at all the human suffering and economic damage they
have done in Prince George. The Independent Soldiers can do the same
things, and a rivalry can make it even worse, the Mounties said.

"We're seeing young men with no conscience, no concern for people's
feelings or health, no regard for your safety," said Bethune, who has
dealt with certain members of the Independent Soldiers on other
crimes over the years. "That is the kind of people we're dealing
with. Big money is the thing; it's all about the drugs."

Mounties are not saying what they know about the connections to the
Independent Soldiers. A suggestion that they are an Indo-Canadian
puppet club was shrugged off by Bethune, who said there are those in
the area who happen to be Indo-Canadians and happen to deal drugs and
violence, and there may be Indo-Canadians who do business associated
to the new gang, but he said ethnicity is not a defining feature of
the Independent Soldiers, nor are Indo-Canadian criminals in the
region particularly united.