THREAT OF CITY DRUG WAR IS GENUINE - POLICE

A war is brewing over Peterborough's growing crack cocaine trade, the
city police criminal intelligence unit warns.

The intelligence unit revealed a dispute has broken out between a
Bandidos outlaw motorcycle club member and members of organized street
gangs from the GTA in a year-end report to the Peterborough-Lakefield
Police Services Board.

At issue: who oversees the city's supply of crack cocaine and several
other drugs, Deputy Chief Ken Jackman told The Examiner.

"The potential violence this feud may bring poses a risk to the
parties involved, the general public and our own officers," the report
states.

Citing information from a network of informants, surveillance,
intelligence and arrests, the unit identified an unnamed group as
being major suppliers of crack cocaine to the city.

"This group has been identified, as the result of a threat assessment,
as a criminal organization," the report states.

Jackman said there is no one gang to name.

"There's no particular gang, it's persons affiliated to street-level
gangs from the GTA," Jackman said.

Jackman said it's no secret organized drug trafficking ties back to
outlaw biker gangs and other organized crime.

"We're concerned anytime there is violence coming into the community,"
Jackman said.

"We do take it seriously and we do monitor it."

The Bandidos are rivals of the Hells Angels, Ontario's most dominant
outlaw motorcycle club.

In June 2005, city police and police in other cities took part in a
co-ordinated series of raids that resulted in the arrest of a Hells
Angel member believed to be at the centre of the city's drug trade.

The armed takedowns also nabbed his three lieutenants and 25 other
people police said were Hells Angels associates.

Shawn Boshaw, described as a "full patch" member of the Hells Angels,
pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic cocaine and trafficking
cocaine and was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison last March.