October 22 - October 29

Canadas sad truth (part 22)   By Antonio Nicaso Its the worlds fastest growing industry, with profits estimated at $1 trillion, and it poses a greater security challenge to Western democracies than anything theyve faced during the Cold War. Its the Global Mafia, a new, virulent form of international organized crime. Canada is one of its strongholds. According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service "there are approximately 18 active transnational criminal organizations represented in Canada." Not only do they increasingly cooperate to slice up the criminal profits in Canada, but they also use Canada as multi-national fulcrum to plan and coordinate their international criminal ventures. The reason: they face a much lower risk of detection and prosecution than in the United States or in Europe. As Oliver Buck Revell, former assistant director of the FBI, put it in a recent interview with the National Post: "Canada is a particularly weak link in the international law enforcement effort." But, in Ottawa, no one seems to be concerned. Despite the hard-nosed pledge of former Solicitor-General Andy Scott ("Organized crime is the governments Number One law enforcement priority"), an effective federal strategy to fight this new breed of transnational criminals is sadly lacking. Consider the area of money laundering. In May 1998, the federal government issued a consultation document that, in part, acknowledged the importance of imposing controls on cross-border movements of cash and monetary instruments. These are similar to measures that have long been in effect in the U.S. But a new bill containing such a measure has yet to be passed. As a result, it is still harder to import cheese into Canada ? due to restrictions by the Ministry of Agriculture ? than a suitcase filled with dirty money. While Australia and the United Kingdom ? fellow members of the Commonwealth ? already have efficient suspicious transaction reporting systems, Canada remains an internationally known soft spot for money laundering. The list of our legal and regulatory weaknesses is a lengthy one. Until the new law is promulgated ? and the necessary law-enforcement institutions established ? we wont have mandatory suspicious transaction reporting requirements by banks. And we wont have mandatory disclosure requirements for bringing cash and monetary instruments in or out of Canada. Thus, criminal financiers crowd our borders ? eager to enter and launder their ill-gotten gains. For more than a decade, Canada has been criticized by legislators and law-enforcement officials of the industrialized nations for its loose rules against financial crimes. Yet, nothing has been done. Every time a discussion takes place on how to solve this problem, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Privacy Act are cited. This happened when many law enforcement agencies proposed the introduction of legislation similar to the RICO Act in the United States, an effective tool for prosecuting organized criminals. Opponents raise concerns over perceived reductions of personal rights and privileges; none talked about the duties and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. The result: criminals are more protected than their victims. Two years ago, Bill C-95 was passed, an instrument that lawmakers hoped would give police officers "more tools to fight the growing threat of biker gangs and other types of organized crime". Two years after its approval, the Act has yet to be tested in court. In Winnipeg theyre trying to use it against an aboriginal gang, but nobody seems to show great optimism. The reasons are simple: the anti-gang legislation does not differentiate between a sophisticated Mafia crime group and a gang of squeegee-kids, since it can be applied to "any group, association or other body consisting of five or more persons, whether formally or informally organized." This is not the definition of the Mafia, the Triads, or the Colombian cartels. As is well known, one of the main criteria of Mafia-like criminal organizations is organization itself, the repartition of tasks, the existence of rules. In a word, they are formally organized. By comparison, many other groups of criminals are similar to packs of wolves. Experts of Mafia and other main criminal syndicates know perfectly well that the definition of criminal organizations introduced by Bill C-95 has no connection with reality. Then there is another unconvincing aspect: why "five or more persons"? What if theyre three? Cant they be a criminal organization? These remarks can appear irrelevant to somebody, but they demonstrate a woefully limited knowledge of organized crime and its characteristics. Lets consider the biker gangs, which were the original target of this law. Well, they operate on an individual basis. Belonging to a biker gang guarantees each member the possibility of running an illicit activity. Club colours are a sort of passport to enter the underworld and deal personally with other bosses. For decades, people had been discussing the need to prepare legislation against criminal organizations. The Act passed in 1997 gives no guarantee and does not help in understanding and fighting this phenomenon. Now, even the Americans have taken notice, and they threaten to place Canada on their "Major List", the list of those countries that do little if anything to seriously hamper drug production and trafficking. South of the border Canada is seen as a sort of strainer, leaking from a thousand holes. In Canada there is no mandatory jail-term. Increasingly, big drug dealers often leave jail after a few years. Yet nobody seems to worry. In Ottawa, the Chrétien cabinet keeps playing with words and promising initiatives that never materialize. Organized criminal organizations have long been present in Canada ? though not with their current intensity and transnational co-operation. They were already here in the 1800s, when the Markham Gang preyed on the burghers of early Toronto. They were here in the 1950s and 60s when former Attorneys General ? in denial ? depicted Canada as an oasis of peace without Mafia or mobsters. Lately Canada has become a "welcome wagon" for organized crime, a revolving door that lets everyone in ? regardless of their criminal past. After the great Soviet meltdown, for example, many mobsters that used to operate in Russia and in the former USSR Republics, chose Canada as their destination. RCMP Superintendent Ben Soave, who heads the Toronto-based Organized Crime squad, warns, "they are trying to corrupt politicians and police with bribes and blackmail. They are a threat to our national security." In other countries this statement would have been sufficient to appoint a royal commission in order to find a solution to this dangerous problem. Sadly, not in Canada. Our politicians sit idly by. None will act until theres a loss of life ? as occurred in Quebec when efforts against outlaw motorcycle gangs were intensified only after the death of innocent people. (translated by Emanuele Oriano) This is the last of Antonio Nicasos 22-part series on Mafie.

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