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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
Canada’s sad truth
Part 22 - The Global Mafia finds comfort in country’s lack of anti-organized crime laws
By Antonio Nicaso
Originally Published: 2001-06-24
It’s the world’s fastest growing industry, with profits estimated at $1 trillion, and it poses a greater security challenge to Western democracies than anything they’ve faced during the Cold War.
It’s 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 government’s 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.
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