Posted at 5:00 am.
Daniel Renaud investigative team, La Presse
Organized crime has not only benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also adapted and changed a bit.
“Now Quebecers go to countries that produce or export cocaine, and our liaison officers ask us, ‘Who are these people?’ We tell them we have no idea,” said Patrick Daoust, chief of crime and analyst at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) C (Quebec) Unit.
Since the pandemic, police forces, be it the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec or the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), have found that there are more and more people unknown to their services who are “improvising” cocaine importers.
They travel to the Global South to conduct business or operate a “gateway” (an individual or group capable of bringing drugs into Canada) that allows them to cultivate the Toronto-Montreal corridor.
SCREENSHOT FROM VIDEO OF LOCAL POLICE
Bô Soleil Morin-Lachance, Francis Toupin-Bergevin and Frédéric Dewald were arrested on February 1 at their home in Lima, Peru.
The arrest of three Quebecers in Peru in late January could be an example of this new trend, police believe.
We are witnessing a democratization of imports, of young people who want to become productive, a bit like reality TV. I don’t think there is a band today that doesn’t import or try.
Patrick Daoust, Criminal Intelligence Supervisor and Analyst at the RCMP C Division
“These are people who have less strategic leverage within organized crime but are very important to criminal groups,” adds his colleague Julie-Anne Moreau, also a crime analyst.
According to Mr. Daoust, many imports are now paid for in cryptocurrency, and that could coincide with the fact that we find, for example, younger improvised importers who have experience with the new technologies that are at their disposal, for example in their phones.
However, recent volatility in cryptocurrencies could potentially encourage importers to return to more traditional funding and money transfer methods.
Coke in stock
At the start of the pandemic, a kilogram of cocaine was fetching $85,000 in Montreal due to the shortages caused by the border closures.
Today, the price of a kilogram of cocaine is around US$28,000 because everything that had been blocked for months finally made its way into the province, the RCMP explains.
The price increase at the beginning of the pandemic was due to the closure of borders and the long halt to trade. Then the goods started arriving again at breakneck speed, and customs checks may have become fewer because the goods had to arrive.
François-Olivier Myette, Sergeant in the RCMP Criminal Investigation Department
The organizations therefore accumulated large quantities as imports, mainly from Mexico and mainly by land, stopped, causing the supply to become very large.
To make more money, Quebec-based criminal groups are now engaging in exports to Europe and Australia, where a kilogram of cocaine fetches more than CA$40,000 and over US$300,000, according to the RCMP.
Commercial infiltration
To import cocaine, organized crime typically falsifies commercial transactions and fabricates false invoices to justify sending money, and almost all of the dirty money used to finance the imports then leaves the country.
But with borders closed and commercial transactions halted, organized crime in Montreal faced money to launder and needed access to bank accounts to conduct transactions.
“And when he gets back to base, what’s organized crime doing that’s here trying to reinvest his money? What does he do when he can no longer invest in other raw materials and wants to import from the countries of origin? He turns to what surrounds him: traders in trouble in Montreal or elsewhere,” describes Sergeant François-Olivier Myette.
During the pandemic, Mr. Myette and his colleagues have observed what the Sergeant calls “Ozarkification,” a nod to the American television series Ozark, in which the main character buys up local businesses to launder dirty money.
After March 2020, the RCMP observed how Montreal organized crime members took control of small businesses by making their rightful owners “offers they couldn’t refuse”: investing more than the true value of the business and demanding the owners to continue their business before it closed as soon as the maneuver was no longer necessary.
Another example: Criminals suddenly and fleetingly developed an interest in a completely unfamiliar virtual market.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
François-Olivier Myette, Sergeant in the RCMP Criminal Investigation Department
To launder their money, organized crime have turned to local businesses and small local markets, taking advantage of people and businesses of vulnerable status to buy out businesses of all kinds on a large scale.
François-Olivier Myette, Sergeant in the RCMP Criminal Investigation Department
“We’ve seen people in the wake of big organized crime players, figureheads, acquiring assets on a massive scale. Suddenly someone comes out of nowhere and finds himself at the helm of about thirty companies of this type, with no knowledge, no money for it and whose money comes from somewhere,” continues François-Olivier Myette, who, according to organized crime, turned during the pandemic also the acquisition of buildings.
The Return of the Gambling Houses
Recent studies suggest that the number of online gaming customers has exploded during the pandemic.
Without having incriminating numbers, the RCMP believes the Montreal mafia, which controls illegal online sports betting, has certainly benefited from it too.
The closure of licensed establishments due to sanitation measures has seen a surge in clandestine gambling operators in the Montreal region during the pandemic, even leading to conflicts over territory control.
There were illegal gambling houses all over the Montreal metropolitan area, controlled by all groups, not just the big ones but street gangs as well.
Julie-Anne Moreau, crime analyst with the RCMP’s C Division
Players visiting these locations needed cash, and illegal ATMs ended up in these arcades, according to the RCMP, as did slot machines that were out of Loto-Québec’s control.
“Criminals are strategic, so must we be”
“Interfere” with criminals in investigations that do not necessarily lead to charges, continue to increase exchanges with international police forces, recognize that criminals can be arrested and tried here in other countries and keep an eye out for trends: C Division (Quebec) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police explained to La Presse its policies that will ensure it will now be more visible in the fight against organized crime than it has been in recent years.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Staff Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau, Acting Chief of the Organized Crime Program at the RCMP’s C Division, and Inspector Christian Sabourin, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the RCMP’s C Division
“Criminals are strategic. We too have to comply with the law,” says Inspector Christian Sabourin, head of the criminal investigation department.
After intensively dedicating itself to border surveillance, international and domestic terrorism and now foreign interference in recent years, C Division has been a reference in the fight against importers and the Montreal Mafia since the 1980s the Montreal Mafia organized crime groups in Quebec since the mid-2010s.
She intends to become actively involved again by continuing the investigation, which will aim to bring charges. If this does not succeed, however, she still wants to cause “disruptions”, says inspector Christian Sabourin.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Inspector Christian Sabourin, Chief of Criminal Investigation, RCMP C Division
Traditionally, when we identified an item of investigation and were unable to complete it, we turned to the SQ or SPVM. And if there were no buyers, we said it would be a shame. But that time is over.
Inspector Christian Sabourin, Chief of Criminal Investigation, RCMP C Division
“Even if an investigation does not result in an indictment, we will visit the suspects, talk to them, tell them we know what they are doing and recruit informants. We will work more closely with our partners such as tax authorities or the Canada Border Services Agency when people do not have their citizenship, for example. “In short, we want to give the hornet’s nest a good kick,” describes Inspector Christian Sabourin, according to which another important task of the C Division’s intelligence service will be to identify new trends and inform its partners.
World traveling criminals
In recent years, the RCMP has increased the number of its liaison officers in cocaine producing and exporting countries and intensified its cooperation with local police forces.
The arrest of three Quebecers suspected of drug trafficking in Peru last February is proof of this.
“In the past, crime only existed here. Now people are moving and relationships are being made everywhere. We need to be able to continue our investigations overseas to ensure we are as effective as possible,” said Staff Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau, Acting Chief of Organized Crime Program at Unit C.
Mr Duchesneau assures that the RCMP’s aim is not to deliberately extradite criminals from here to be tried in other countries, but adds that they are playing with fire.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau, Acting Chief of the Organized Crime Program of the RCMP’s C Division
We are increasingly realizing that our criminals have a large international exposure and that we need to know where the best place to go to court is. Now, when the cocaine gets to Europe, four police forces will end up involved. Where will we accuse?
Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau, Acting Chief of the Organized Crime Program of the RCMP’s C Division
Staff Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau believes more Quebec bandits are at risk of being extradited and tried elsewhere.
level the game
Sergeant Dominic Duchesneau believes that the federal government should allow the use of technological tools and make “significant legislative changes” to enable police to fight organized crime more effectively, to facilitate information-sharing between law enforcement agencies in Canada and abroad, surveillance of criminals and intercept their encrypted communications.
“Always demanding the impossible from the police, at some point that no longer works. For years we have informed organized crime about our approach. And eventually there are limits to what we can invent. Unfortunately, we have not adjusted the rules of the game. Privacy is important in Canada, but when the majority of our bandits are on Facebook and Instagram, taking photos of themselves while traveling, we tell ourselves we can’t have the butter and the money for the butter,” Mr Duchesneau concludes.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514.285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the La Presse mailing address.