April 16 - April 23

Canada: A haven for Mafiosi of every sort (part 1)   By Antonio Nicaso Newmarket ? "The Mafia is strong and well-rooted in Canada. But other criminal groups are operating with an organizational capacity and a turnover no lower than those of the Mafia." Ben Soave is one of the point men at the RCMP. Hes been leading the special Organized Crime Task Force in the Greater Toronto Area, and he and his men are credited, among other things, with the capture of Alfonso Caruana, who is alleged to be one of the most powerful bosses of international drug trafficking. Fifty-one, married, two children, and in the RCMP since 1970, Soave also worked in Italy, Peru and Singapore. He went undercover for six years in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and hes now considered an important reference point in the fight against organized crime. "Canada is heaven for mafiosi of every sort," he says, rearranging the stack of documents on his desk in his Newmarket office. A bas-relief of a group of Carabinieri (Italian military police) is quite prominently displayed behind him. He doesnt hide his link with Italy ("Its just like I never left") and he has very clear ideas about all kinds of Mafia: "The laws we have, far from scaring them away, encourage criminals to come to Canada." The G7 countries warned Ottawa about this. The laws against money laundering are inadequate, theres no limit to the entrance of cash and, most of all, banks are not required to inform the police about suspicious transactions. In 1990, the government was forced to review legislation on this subject, after two U.S. Grand Juries investigated certain transactions involving two branch offices, one of the Bank of Nova Scotia and the other of the Royal Bank of Canada, operating in the Caribbean. "There were suspicions that the money deposited was the fruit of drug dealing," confirms the former vice Director of the FBI, Oliver "Buch" Revell. "Today, in the case of suspicious transactions, bank officials may inform the police, but the law does not compel them to do so," explains Soave. "If a boss enters Canada with a suitcase full of cash, based on the laws currently in force we can do little if anything at all," he admits. Theres no other explanation for the money-laundering turnover. Estimates refer to 17 billion dollars per year, more than 15 percent of the Federal budget. This clandestine economy is constantly growing and the techniques used by criminal groups become increasingly sophisticated. "They communicate via e-mail, share businesses and invest billions around the world," explains Soave. One of the most powerful drug czars is alleged to be Alfonso Caruana. He lived in Woodbridge, a prosperous community just north of Toronto, where he allegedly controlled a huge drug and money-laundering ring. Couriers, carrying suitcases full of dollars, were thought to be transferring the proceeds of drug dealing to Mexico and Florida. Two trips per week, millions of dollars. Mind-boggling figures. "These are not the days of Mano Nera (Black Hand) and extortion letters any more," continues Soave. "Nowadays the main characteristics of the most powerful criminal organizations are invisibility and internationalization." Language is no longer a barrier for bosses, either. In Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and even in many smaller places, bosses and minions of various origins repeatedly operated on the same front. "A kind of criminal company," says Sergeant Pietro Poletti of the Criminal Intelligence Service in Ottawa. "Not a joint management, but a partnership of sort, with investment of funds destined to purchasing large quantities of drugs." According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, at least 18 different criminal organizations are active in our country. They include the Mafia, the ndrangheta, some segments of Cosa Nostra, the Triads, the Big Circle Boys, the Yakuza, the Colombian cartels (Cali, Medellin), some gangs linked to the Vory v Zakone (the elite of Russian Mafia), Mexican, Nigerian and Jamaican criminal groups, and, of course, biker gangs with Hells Angels and the Rock Machine at war for years over control of Quebec. "With some exceptions, these organizations have focused on money-making ventures and opportunities ?rather than focusing on merely controlling specific territories," explains Mario Possamai, an expert in the underground economy and money-laundering. "For them, the objective is making money ? regardless of where it takes them. This means that, if necessary, they will connect with other crime groups in other parts of Canada and of the world. Their operations respect no national boundaries." Canada seems to be a country suitable for Mafia investments. The stock market in Vancouver is seemingly very receptive and investments by the Triads could be the order of the day. "Better than Vancouver, we should call it Van-Kong," suggests half-jokingly a British Columbia RCMP sergeant who prefers to remain anonymous. The largest part of heroin destined to Canada and the U.S. enters through British Columbia. Montreal, which has become the marshalling yard for cocaine arriving from Bolivia and Europe, is no less important. In Ontario, the worst threat comes from the ex-Soviet bloc Mafia and the Asian gangs. "Here, no less than 19 different organizations connected to Eastern Europe are active," explains RCMP Sergeant Reg King. The list is long. There are the Podolskaya, Mazutkinskaya, Tambovskaya and Izmailovskaya groups, linked to the so-called Vory v Zakone. Then the Solntsevskaya, Mogilevitch (the Ukrainian Mafia) and Uzbek groups, and the Tchechenyan, Georgian, Armenian and Azer clans. And also the Lithuanian, Polish, Croat, Serbian, Hungarian and Rumanian criminal groups. "They often interact, but the strongest groups are the Izmailovskaya and the Mogilevitch," explains King. It was, however, thanks to Canada that the FBI managed to arrest one of the most powerful Russian Mafia czars in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovitch Ivankov, aka Japonchik ("the little Japanese") because of the shape of his eyes. The RCMP in Toronto had been following the movements of Vyacheslav Marakulovich Sliva, brother-in-law of the U.S.-based boss. Sliva, before entering Canada as a tourist in 1994, had organized a protection racket in Russia. One of his contacts in Canada was Joseph Sigalov. During a three-year investigation, some telephone calls between Sigalov and Ivankov were tapped. This is how the police came to know about a summit in Puerto Rico among Russian bosses where they debated about the need to dispose of some notable members of rival gangs, but also of an operation to extort 3.5 million dollars from two Russian businessmen active on Wall Street. Thanks to those telephone interceptions, Ivankov was arrested in 1995 and sentenced to 10 years in jail. Sigalov died of a brain tumor in Toronto in September 1996, while Sliva, the most authoritative boss whos landed in Canada so far, was expelled for lying about his criminal background when entering the country. They are powerful, unprincipled, rich, learned. "They are trying to corrupt, but also to threaten politicians and policemen," admits Soave. "And this is a danger for the security of our country." In addition to the Russian Mafia, the Triads and the traditional criminal groups are also very strong. Gangs of Native Indians and bikers often get in touch with them. "Ontario is the only Canadian province where Hells Angels havent yet succeeded in creating a base," says RCMP Staff Sergeant J.P. Levesque, an international expert on bikers. "Everything leads to think that this year the winged-skull bikers will extend their tentacles over the richest province of Canada." Last year, INTERPOL chief Raymond Kendall, talking about organized crime, had sounded the alarm: "We havent got much time to stop them. We must get ready, creating a joint front. Otherwise, they will get control of entire countries, if they havent already." During the latest G7 summit, attended also by Russian delegates, crime globalization was marked as a priority. But nobody has done anything yet. Canada, according to Revell, has all the requisites for becoming the weak link in the chain. "Its borders are full of holes and its laws absolutely inadequate." Politicians have grave responsibilities in all of this. In the Sixties and Seventies they vied with each other in negating the existence of the Mafia or other similar organizations. And while the U.S. passed laws such as the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Statute (RICO), in Canada nobody worried much. "We still pay the price of so many years of political underestimation," says Julian Fantino, chief of the York Region Police. "Arresting a boss is not enough, we must strike at his interests, at his wallet. Otherwise, he will keep leading his organization from jail and nothing will change." According to Fantino, in dealing with criminals the police should avail itself of the same tools used by Revenue Canada. "Thats the only way to stop them". (Translated by Emanuele Oriano) Antonio Nicaso is the author of Deadly Silence: Canadian Mafia Murders and Global Mafia: The New World Order of Organized Crime (both published by MacMillan Canada).

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