Police fear more drugs and violence are coming as Mexican cartels begin operating in B.C.

OFF THE WIRE
Mexican cartels are setting up shop in B.C. by sending representatives to live here with their families, the head of the Gang Task Force said Sunday.

And police fear the cartel violence that has ripped apart Mexico may not be far behind if the newly settled immigrants start warring with B.C. crime groups, Supt. Tom McCluskie said.

"There are cartel members settling here. They are bringing their families here. They are having kids here," McCluskie told The Vancouver Sun.

The senior Vancouver police officer did his first ride-along with one of his uniformed Gang Task Force teams in this Okanagan city since taking over the GTF's top job earlier this month.

The Mexicans are scattered around B.C., including the Okanagan and the Lower Mainland, and so far there have been no major conflicts, McCluskie said.

Earlier this month, the RCMP's Federal Drug Enforcement Section announced charges against Mexican nationals in two separate cocaine-smuggling operations, including one involving Kelowna residents.

McCluskie said that if the cartels have their own people in Canada, they can cut out the middleman and increase their profit. It also means the cocaine they are bringing in is much purer, he said.

Police are gathering intelligence on how the Mexican development alters the organized crime landscape of B.C., he said.

There are also still plenty of homegrown gangs and crime groups causing trouble across the province, he said, including those pushed out of Metro Vancouver who are resettling in major centres like Kelowna.

"I think that some of these fellows are moving up here looking for opportunities," McCluskie said of B.C. gangs like the Red Scorpions, the Independent Soldiers and the United Nations, who have all expanded here.

"The gangs that are moving up here are coming up here specifically to move into a market."

He said there is a lot of open territory in the Okanagan and other parts of B.C. and such areas don't have the saturation of law-enforcement agencies that has developed in the Lower Mainland in recent years.

That's why the uniformed team came for the second time in recent months to gather intelligence, check gangsters, and let local residents know that police will push criminals out of the community.

"We want to offer these communities up here the same kind of service people in the Lower Mainland are getting," he said.

While Lower Mainland mid-level street gangs are in town, the main groups of concern to police here are biker gangs.

The Hells Angels opened a Kelowna chapter in 2007. Its membership mainly consists of full-patch members who moved from other Lower Mainland chapters, as well as some who left their Alberta chapters to join the Kelowna charter.

McCluskie said Kelowna is so desirable for gangs because it is midway between Alberta and B.C., with easy access to a less-patrolled section of the Canada-U. S. border.

The HA has two puppet clubs in town -the Throttle Lockers and the King Pin Crew, who have a clubhouse above a business linked to the gang called Downtown Cycle.

McCluskie and his team passed by all three clubhouses during the evening as well as the home of King Pin vice-president Lawrence Colpitts, a former Independent Soldier.

Later in downtown Kelowna, King Pin president Dale Habib marched out of Cheetah's show lounge late Saturday, complaining that the task force stopped him from even having "a drink of water."

Task force team leader Cpl. Eldon Orregaard clarified that Habib left the strip club of his own accord because there were media nearby.

Another King Pin Crew full-patch member Justin Speake stayed behind to chat with police, wearing a black hoodie with the gang's logo on back -- a death head with a crown and the initials KPC as jewels.

McCluskie entered some of the bars and clubs with his team, talking to young patrons about why gang specialists from the Lower Mainland were in town. Most seemed responsive to the visitors.

McCluskie's shift ended early Sunday morning with his team pulling over Matt Schrader, a well-known former Abbotsford gangster who is now living in Kelowna.

Schrader was closely associated with Anton Hooites-Meursing, the longtime gangster who is serving a life sentence for murder and who is expected to be a key Crown witness in the Surrey Six murder case. And Schrader was even closer to Rob Shannon, the Abbotsford man serving a 20-year U.S. sentence for his role in a massive drug-smuggling operation linked to the Hells Angels.

Schrader told a Sun reporter he has settled permanently in Kelowna, though he couldn't say what he was doing for work.

Asked if he felt unfairly targeted by the task force, he said: "Same sh-t every day."

He didn't want to be photographed and refused to allow police to search his SUV.

As McCluskie was dropped off at RCMP headquarters at close to 1:30 a.m. Sunday, he said the night had been informative and interesting.

And more importantly, the team sent a strong message to area gangsters, he said.

"It doesn't matter where you plan on going, we are going to be there with you."

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Police+fear+more+drugs+violence+coming+Mexican+cartels+begin+operating/3686895/story.html