Street Gang Runs Ring. Bordeaux Guards Implicated In Operation That Supplied Drugs, Booze, Cellphones Provincial prison guard Pierre-Arold Agnant will see what life is like on the other side of the bars for at least a week after he was arrested on allegations he helped a street gang smuggle drugs into the Montreal Detention Centre. He was among nine people arrested yesterday by the Surete du Quebec in an investigation of corruption at the site, formerly known as Bordeaux jail, in north-end Montreal. [continues 356 words]
On Par With Organized Crime, Cops Say. Problem Spreads Across, And Beyond, Island Montreal street gangs have cemented their place on the city's criminal landscape by forming alliances with the Mafia and the Hells Angels. The street gangs have become better organized and so sophisticated in their criminal dealings they can be compared to other major criminal organizations that have operated in the city for years, police said yesterday. "You can compare them to the bikers and other criminal organizations," Mario Plante, the Montreal police assistant director in charge of special squads, told reporters at a briefing. [continues 486 words]
Use Of Latest Technology, Mergers Cited In Report A growing problem with organized crime is that it's getting more organized. A report released yesterday by province's criminal information service, which pools information from various police forces in the province, says there are now more than 300 criminal groups active in Quebec and they are increasingly working with each other and using the latest technologies to pursue illicit activities. "Organized crime is becoming more complex," said Montreal police chief Yvan Delorme, who heads the information service's management committee. "They work with the Internet, with all the new technology. All the gangs now have their whiz kids with technological know-how. Organized crime has no more borders. What we're seeing is the globalization of organized crime." [continues 358 words]
Batshaw 'Very Concerned'. Dealing Drugs, Guns A Growing Problem In N.D.G., Little Burgundy And St. Henri Baby-faced boys as young as 12 are being recruited by Montreal street gangs to sell drugs and transport guns, the director of youth protection for Batshaw Youth and Family Centres confirmed yesterday. "We are very concerned about street gangs," said Michael Godman, who oversees youth protection services for the anglophone community on the island of Montreal. "We are seeing more and more young adolescents gravitating toward these gangs, where they get a sense of identity and security." [continues 316 words]
Adrian Davis Seemed To Have A Bright Football Future - Until He Was Arrested Perhaps nothing would have changed, in the grand scheme of things, had Adrian Davis completed his senior season at Marshall University. Perhaps he'd still be here, at training camp, competing for a job on the Alouettes' defensive line. Or, perhaps, a team in the National Football League would have taken notice. We'll never know. But one thing's certain: If not for a fateful night in April 2006, Davis wouldn't have had his name splashed in newspapers, his face repeatedly displayed on television. He wouldn't have been forced to return home, to Greenfield Park, with some trepidation when he faced his family. [continues 810 words]
Liberal Government Blasted On Services Quebec's prisons are so overcrowded, inmates are bunking on mattresses in gyms and classrooms. Too many seniors in long-term care centres are being kept in adult diapers, given one bath a week and fed cold meals because of staff shortages. The province's automobile-insurance agency is still dragging its feet on settling cases. And that's not all. In a scathing 300-page report tabled in the National Assembly, provincial ombudsman Raymonde Saint-Germain blasts the Liberal government and many of its agencies for their lousy performance last year, honing in above all on the chronic overcrowding of Quebec's 18 prisons. [continues 1105 words]
One Officer Shot At Near His Home. 'It They Attack The Police, Who Will Be Next - A Judge, A Prosecutor' Union Leader Asks Brazen street gang members are trying to intimidate Montreal police officers, the president of the Montreal Police Brotherhood said yesterday. During the past year, gang members have surrounded uniformed police officers on the streets of St. Michel and Montreal North in attempts to frighten them, Francoeur said. "They are very arrogant and they have no respect for authority," he said. "If they attack the police, who will be next - a judge or a prosecutor?" [continues 482 words]
Quebec, N.B. Raids. Police Say Traffickers Were Smuggling Locally Grown Crops Into Maine More than 60 people in Quebec and New Brunswick were arrested yesterday as police cracked down on a drug trafficking ring with alleged ties to the Hells Angels that exported marijuana to the United States. Among the people arrested by the Surete du Quebec was Sylvain Decelles, 46, of Laval, who has been tied to the biker gang by police for years. In 2004, he received a probationary sentence for producing marijuana in the Montmagny region. [continues 307 words]
One of three brothers who headed a major international drug-trafficking ring with Mafia ties is expected to return to Montreal after being granted day parole. As part of his release, Gerlando Caruana, 63, will have to report to a halfway house north of Montreal. He is currently serving a combined sentence of nearly 31 years at a medium-security institution near Kingston, Ont. On July 15, 1998, Caruana was arrested in Montreal while at the same time his brothers Alphonso and Pasquale were being rounded up in Toronto. They were among more than a dozen people arrested as a special police unit ended Project Omerta, a lengthy investigation into the Caruana brothers' drug trafficking. [continues 121 words]
U.S. War On Drugs Is A Disaster - Now It's Being Exported To Afghanistan Last Wednesday, a feature story in the New York Times began with an unusual scene. In a compound outside Kabul, a group of raw Afghan recruits was being instructed in the basics of enforcing drug laws. "It's Narcotics 101," one of the instructors, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, told the reporter. "We are at a stage now of telling these recruits, 'this is a handgun, this is a bullet.' " [continues 1020 words]
"It's a national day for informing the public about the damage and dangers of organized crime throughout Canada," says Steven Chabot, assistant director-general of the Surete du Quebec and vice-president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Organized crime has its tentacles in more aspects of society than the average person thinks, says the man in charge of investigating it at the provincial level. To help Canadians understand the size of the problem, police forces across the country launched a series of awareness programs today as part of the inaugural National Organized Crime Prevention Day. [continues 474 words]
The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions. The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan. The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liason with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements. [continues 1408 words]
The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions. The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan. The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liason with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have promoted opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements. [continues 1409 words]
C-32 Panders To Conservative 'More Law Means Order' Mentality Picture this: Your 19-year-old daughter is pulled over by police on suspicion of impaired driving. She is tested for "physical co-ordination," then taken to a police station where she is required to submit urine and blood samples. The test results indicate the presence of marijuana in her urine, although it cannot be ascertained when the drug was consumed or whether she was only exposed to the smoke - remember Ross Rebagliati? [continues 539 words]
Gerald Matticks, the infamous member of the West End Gang who is serving a 12-year prison sentence, has declared bankruptcy, says a report by the Journal de Montreal. Matticks owes $8 million to the Quebec government and $2.3 million to the federal government in unpaid income tax and goods and services tax. These amounts were calculated from profits he is alleged to have made from illegal activities, said Solange de Billy-Tremblay, who is acting as an agent in the case. The two governments will probably seize five buildings owned by Matticks. He was once described by an informant as "the door" to the Port of Montreal for organized crime looking to get drugs into the city. [end]
Re: " 'I'm really, really sorry,' Parasiris tells officer's family" (Gazette, April 25). As a serving police officer of 21 years, I believe the events surrounding the murder of Laval Constable Daniel Tessier and the subsequent release of his accused killer on bail (a first in Canadian history) serve notice to all police officers that our lives and profession mean very little to the system we are sworn to uphold and protect. That system, and the Quebec courts representing it, chose to grant bail to Tessier's apologetic accused killer, a man who keeps loaded handguns by the bedside and yet is not seen as a threat to public safety. [continues 84 words]
Canada's 54 federal penitentiaries hold about 12,700 inmates serving sentences longer than two years. They are guarded and served by about 14,500 staff at a cost of nearly $1.8 billion a year. If the Conservative government gets its way, those numbers will soon be going up. A bill now before Parliament would impose increased automatic prison terms for gun-related crimes. Another bill awaiting introduction would impose minimum jail terms for certain drug-related offences. (Just this week in Dorval, it's worth noting, a young woman was killed and police were seeking a suspect just released from prison after a drug-trafficking sentence.) [continues 386 words]
[Re: "Insect: Pot gouging," April 19]: Marijuana has many beneficial medicinal uses. Medical marijuana patients rely on their medicine in order to live and have better lives. It is unfortunate that Health Canada feels the need to "pot gouge" sick people by charging exorbitant prices for a poor quality product. That is not the Canadian way of helping others. Instead, our federal government should legalize and regulate marijuana and support local compassion clubs, which are able to deliver safe, organic, medicinal marijuana to patients. Someone needs to tell Health Canada that bullying sick people is the wrong message to send to our young people. Western Canada Director Educators For Sensible Drug Policy [end]
Officers Have Arrested Dozens Since Mid-March The arrests of nearly 40 people, most of them students, in a series of drug raids at Gatineau high schools in the past month were in response to school and community requests for help in dealing with drug use in schools, according to police and a principal who asked for the force's help. On March 15, five students at Ecole secondaire du Versant were arrested and charged for using marijuana, while another student was arrested for selling cigarettes. About a week later, police arrested 14 teenagers during the lunch hour near Polyvalente Nicolas-Gatineau and charged them with drug-related offences. This month, police arrested three students during lunchtime near Philemon Wright High School and charged them with drug-related offences. [continues 145 words]
Inside Quebec
