CNN: Drug-fueled gang wars shake Vancouver

[Harvey Specter]

So watched this report on CNN, not really good news for the city just before the 2010 games.


Video: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americ...ml#cnnSTCVideo

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (CNN) -- When Canadian cocaine smuggler Charles Lai was being sentenced in a Seattle federal courtroom last month, the judge sending him to prison for 13 years offered a small item of good news.

At least behind bars, Judge James Robart said, drug smuggler Lai would not become another fatality in Vancouver's gang wars.

Authorities in Vancouver, just 30 miles from the border, are struggling to deal with the boom in the drug trade between the United States and Canada, along with the violence that has come with it.

Cocaine from Mexico -- and many of the guns that fuel the violence -- come north via the United States. Canadian smugglers then bring south high-quality marijuana known as "BC Bud" and synthetic drugs like methamphetamine. A recent U.N. drug report named Canada as the "primary" supplier of Ecstasy to the United States.

The gang killings are blamed in part over who will control which areas of this estimated $6 billion-a-year narcotics trade.

Beyond the string of slayings and shootings that have taken place over the last two years are the new modes in which the violence is carried out.

"It's the type of murders, the more brazen public shootings, the shootings in front of the grocery store with automatic weapons," said superintendent Pat Fogarty of the Royal Mounted Police, who oversees a special multi-jurisdictional unit that is taking on the gangs and larger criminal organizations behind them.

"It's common now for gangsters to carry body armor and wear it, to have bulletproof cars," Fogarty said. "What that does is when one gang is shooting up another gang, their .40-calibers aren't able to pierce the body armor of the vehicle or the body armor of the vests. So what we've seen is an elevation in firepower, which is a scary process."

The gangs -- police estimate there at least 120 different groups operating in Vancouver and the surrounding area -- have names like the UN, the Red Scorpions, the Big Circle Boys and the Independent Soldiers.

They are mostly homegrown operations or recruits from immigrant communities. Some gang members come from middle-class families and join up expecting the Hollywood version of criminal life.

"These guys act like rock stars," said Sgt. Kieron McConnell of the British Columbia Integrated Gang Task Force. It's McConnell's job to remove what he calls "the mystique of being a gangster."

A 20-year police veteran with a looming frame and completely bald head, McConnell and the officers who patrol with him act as a buzzkill to many gang members' night on the town.

The Gang Task Force slowly winds through bars and clubs known for their gangster clientele. Until closing time, the police check for identification and run names. Through an agreement with most of the bars in the city, when police find anyone with a history of violence or drug peddling, they can bounce them from the establishment -- no questions asked.

The police's goal is not to harass the gang members, they say, but to remove a potential target from an area full of bystanders.

"We are encouraging them not to bring violence with them to where they socialize," McConnell said.

Chris Mohan's son did not need to go far, however, to become an innocent victim of the gangs. The violence literally came to his doorstep. In October 2007, Mohan, 22 years old, was walking out of the apartment where he lived with his parents when gang hit men came to murder a neighbor police believe was involved in the drug trade.

Mohan was one of six people killed in the shooting.

"They killed Chris, but I got a life sentence," Mohan's mother, Eileen Mohan, said of having to live without her son. Despite what they took from her, Eileen Mohan does not show any fear of the gangs. She has become an advocate for tougher sentencing of violent criminals, attends the hearings for the men accused of her son's killing and still lives in the apartment where he died.

Her mission now is to hurt gangsters. "They touched my life illegally, I want to touch theirs legally," she said.

Even though police say they are taking the fight to the gangs like never before, it remains to be seen if authorities can totally dismantle Vancouver's gangs and the larger criminal organization behind them.

Police say they need legislation passed that would enable them to monitor encrypted cell phone conversations and for the legal system to pass down stiffer sentences on gangsters.

Tougher sentences may explain why more Canadian drug traffickers like Charles Lai face a courtroom in America, not Canada.

Even though Canadian authorities say they are capable of trying their own criminals, crime experts say police are sometimes all too happy if smugglers are captured in the United States, where they face a less bureaucratic justice system and longer stretches in jail.

"In these regional operations, the tendency has been for the offenders to be arrested, charged and processed in the United States, not Canada," said Robert Gordon, director of the School of Criminology at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. "That's an indictment of how we are handling this

[StylinRed]

great just what we need


what's worse is the mexican gangs are growing and those guys are craazy

[nns]

Encrypted cell phone conversations? I'd like to know more about that. Do they just speak in code, or is their actual conversation run through some encryption protocol? The latter would be interesting.

[Adsdeman]

Like anything is gonna work, i hate all this talk of change its not going to work. Where there is shit loads of money there is shit loads of crime. End of, always been that way and always going to remain if not get worse.

[bengy]

Gang taskforce is such a fuckin joke. Bunch of pricks running around and harrasing people in clubs who aren't even in gangs just because of the way they look.

[billboa]

Originally Posted by nns

Encrypted cell phone conversations? I'd like to know more about that. Do they just speak in code, or is their actual conversation run through some encryption protocol? The latter would be interesting.

generally just a simple code like using girls names to replace whatever your talking about.

Hey man hows it goin?..did u go see wendy yet? oh you did, hey was she wearing that same purple dress as last time? haha ya i knew it, shes been wearing that a lot latley. well im bored as fuck ima come over.

[m4k4v4li]

lol maybe for scrub runners they will talk like that otherwise business is never discussed verbally over the phone

i think its referring to text messages, for berrys and iphones you can have scramblers that will encrypt ur text before you send it, and then it is decrypted after it is received

both lines will have the program and is password activated... so say i receive an encrypted text i will have to know the password set by the sender to decrypt it

even if the line is tapped, the texts can't be read

[ziggyx]

"Even though Canadian authorities say they are capable of trying their own criminals, crime experts say police are sometimes all too happy if smugglers are captured in the United States, where they face a less bureaucratic justice system and longer stretches in jail."

If only we could send all our criminals to the states where they get harsher penalties instead of a slap on the hand here. lol

[twixxer]

vancouver is not a gang infested waste land, this report is garbage just like everything else that cnn reports.

[shenmecar]

Originally Posted by ziggyx

"Even though Canadian authorities say they are capable of trying their own criminals, crime experts say police are sometimes all too happy if smugglers are captured in the United States, where they face a less bureaucratic justice system and longer stretches in jail."

If only we could send all our criminals to the states where they get harsher penalties instead of a slap on the hand here. lol

Lets start a petition.

RS -> Vancouver -> BC -> Canada

Sounds doable

[Tapioca]

While unfortunate, this is an isolated incident that happened 2 years ago. Almost all of the violence has involved people who are connected to the drug trade. The chance of the average person being caught in a crossfire is still very, very low.

I personally think the drug trade is too large of a problem to be solved in our lifetime. There is a clear demand for drugs and the problem is not confined to just the Downtown Eastside. Also, drug money is everywhere and though it's hard to quantify, it likely constitutes a fair share of our economy. The status quo will ultimately prevail unless innocents start getting shot in the streets.

[you]

i like this news, hopefully it will drive away tourist so going to work wont be as painful

[yellowpower]

Originally Posted by you

i like this news, hopefully it will drive away tourist so going to work wont be as painful

We need tourists to help Vancouver grow you idiot

[yvrnycracer]

gang squad patrolling bars is USELESS...

[Ax2-Y]

Originally Posted by yvrnycracer

gang squad patrolling bars is USELESS...

what makes you think that the task force is useless? i havent heard of many shootings lately...
maybe it's helping, maybe its not.

Gang taskforce is such a fuckin joke. Bunch of pricks running around and harrasing people in clubs who aren't even in gangs just because of the way they look.

so you would rather run the risk of getting shot as an innocent bystandard then be ID'd by police in a club? what kind of logic is that?

Nothing to hide, nothing to worry about.

[Nightwalker]

So long as it's profitable and illegal, I can't see there ever really being an end to shit like this.

[Meowjin]

Originally Posted by Ax2-Y

what makes you think that the task force is useless? i havent heard of many shootings lately...
maybe it's helping, maybe its not.


so you would rather run the risk of getting shot as an innocent bystandard then be ID'd by police in a club? what kind of logic is that?

Nothing to hide, nothing to worry about.

because they are all fucking dead maybe? people know when they are going to get shot and cops kicking out some guy because he got caught with weed 5 years ago isn't helping anything.

[orange7]

we need to legalize weed.

[Ludepower]

Originally Posted by Ax2-Y

what makes you think that the task force is useless? i havent heard of many shootings lately...
maybe it's helping, maybe its not.

so you would rather run the risk of getting shot as an innocent bystandard then be ID'd by police in a club? what kind of logic is that?

Nothing to hide, nothing to worry about.

You no have clue on what ur talking about...so just stfu...and let people with some valid solutions discuss. Thanks

[tiger_handheld]

CNN needs to go back to Michael Jackson. the end!

[Meowjin]

the sad part some australian came here to check out our system and now they want it.

[hk20000]

They want legalized possession of small drugs? LOL.

[Meowjin]

^no, barwatch. I think it was the australian pm.

[achiam]

Like I've said a dozen times, Canadians can't handle these so called freedoms. Therefore, we must beef up the penal system - death to traffickers.

[bengy]

Originally Posted by achiam

Like I've said a dozen times, Canadians can't handle these so called freedoms. Therefore, we must beef up the penal system - death to traffickers.

Yeah, then you'll see full out wars between cops and dealers.