Pubdate: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB) Copyright: 2004, Canoe Limited Partnership. Contact: http://www.fyiedmonton.com/htdocs/edmsun.shtml Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135 Author: Paul Cowan Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/trang+gang BATTLE TO CONTINUE Police officers yesterday vowed to continue the battle against organized crime despite the collapse of Alberta's biggest drug prosecution. Yesterday, federal prosecutors announced they are not appealing a judge's decision to stay charges against 11 alleged members of the Trang gang and are staying charges against eight others. "We will continued to go after those involved in organized crime and will do what it takes to dismantle organized crime organizations," vowed Ottawa-based RCMP Chief Supt. Raf Souccar, director of the force's drugs and organized crime directorate. "You don't crack organized crime by plucking the little leaves from tree." And Edmonton Police Service deputy Chief Mike Bradshaw said the investigation has yielded some positive results beyond the 24 convictions secured. "A vast amount of intelligence was gathered on organized crime both in the province and in the region," he said. "We had significant reduction in some of the activities we saw around the city here." Edmonton K-Division RCMP Chief Supt. Rod Knecht, head of criminal operations for Alberta, said lessons learned from the collapsed cases mean prosecutions are more likely to be successful in the future. "Our systems in place five years ago didn't anticipate the volume of information we were going to retrieve," he said. "You could equate it to putting a thumb in a fire hose to try to stop it. "If this same case was presented to us today, I don't think we would have the challenges we faced five years ago." He said new computer software and improved training for police officers on how to handle major cases have been introduced as a result of the Trang case. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin