Global links.

When the words "organized crime" are mentioned, almost everybody thinks of the Mafia - a secret society of mostly Italian people with a reputation for extreme viciousness in protecting their criminal activities. But, organized crime has become far more than that. Complicated international linkages control the drug trade, and Asian gangs and others have moved in on some old Mafia turf.

The Mafia, sometimes called the Cosa Nostra, began in Sicily and it still operates in that island as a kind of shadow government. Not much goes on in Sicily without the, Mafia,s approval; it's said to control the awarding of all government contracts and to, decide who gets elected to public office. Anybody who crosses it is very quickly dealt with. Libero Grassi found that out.

In 1991, Mr. Grassi, a small business owner, was very public about his refusal to pay protection money to the Mafia in Palermo, Sicily. He went on TV to denounce the mob and became a national hero for his courage. Months later, after he was no longer hot news, Libero Grassi was murdered in the street on his way to a coffee bar. It was a warning to any other businesses that might have ideas about refusing to pay

In the summer of 1992, three of Italy's most senior anti-Mafia investigators were murdered in separate incidents. The most prominent of these, Judge Giovanni Falcone, had sent 350 Mafia members to ail in 1987. He was in charge of tile fight against organized crime when the Mafia exploded a one-tonne bomb under his armour-plated car on a busy highway near Palermo. Judge Falcone was heavily guarded at the time, but the Mafia still got him. But, with that outrage something changed.

For years, the Christian Democrats who governed Italy turned a blind eye to Mafia activites. In return, the political party could rely on the Mafia to deliver votes at election time. But, continued Christian Democrat corruption and the murder of Judge Falcone was too much for Italian voters to stomach; they tossed the party out of power. When that happened the Mafia lost its high-placed protection and the heat has been turned up on prosecutions.

For two decades, the Italian Mafia has been dominated by the Corleone clan. But, in 1993, Italian police captured the clan's long-time leader, Salvatore Riina. Two years later they got his successor. Then, in 1996, they finally got their hands on Giovanni Brusca, the man alleged to have blown up Judge Falcone's car. Know as "the Pig," Brusca's brutality stood out even in Mafia circles. It was his willingness to kill that helped him reach the top job in the Corleone family by the age of 39. With Brusca behind bars, Italian authorities are starting to claim they're winning the war against the Mafia. But, that claim has been made before, and the group has an amazing ability to replace its leaders and carry on as before.

Elsewhere, closing down the Mafia has become a priority. In the United States, several Mafia bosses and dozens of foot soldiers are now cooling their heels in prison. However, with 24 "families" and 1,700 active members the Mafia is far from going out of business in America.

The same is true of Canada. Police here say the Mafia's activities are concentrated around Toronto and Montreal. Favourite occupations for organized crime are: drug running, loan-sharking, gambling, protection rackets, and prostitution. However, Mafia operations are more and more cloaked in respectability with strong links to the construction and land development industries in southern Ontario.

Contrary to popular belief there is no "Godfather" figure from whom all power flows. As many as 16 different Mafia cells operate in Ontario, and turf wars among them leave a constant supply of corpses to be picked up and buried. One cell, run by Montreal's Cotroni family, suffered a serious setback in the spring of 1996. In a massive anti-drug sweep, police in Ontario and Quebec arrested more than two dozen people. The links to respectability showed up here too. One of the people caught was vice-president of a major brokerage firm and is alleged to have been involved in laundering Mafia drug money.

Most of the Mafia people in Canada have links with American families but are said to operate on their own on a day-to-day basis. One of those caught in the Quebec and Ontario raids, Frank Cotroni, has a criminal record going back to 1960. He has links to a Mafia family in New York that was headed by one the U.S.'s most notorious mobsters, Carmine Galente.

The huge profits generated by drug trafficking have prompted competitors to enter the business. As a result, an underworld war has broken out. The body count has been rising steadily in Montreal as biker gangs such as the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine fight for control of the street drug trade. The war started in 1994, when a few drug dealers were shot. But soon, bombs started turning up in public places as bikers tried to take out their competitors. The Hells Angels appear to have the upper hand and are spreading their drug dealing network into Ontario. This is the only province where they don't control a large chunk of the marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and methamphetamine trade. Hells Angels were more active in the Prairie provinces during the summer of 1996 as well.

The Hells Angels group has surprisingly few members - probably only 75 in the whole of Quebec. But, they control a crime syndicate of associated member clubs, somewhat like the farm system operated by major league baseball teams. So, groups such as the Rockers, the Evil Ones, Satans Guards, Jokers, Death Riders, and others provide the ground forces while the Hells Angels officers plot the strategy. And, in fact the Hells Angels have a military origin. Like most biker clubs, it was formed after World War II by disaffected airmen. These people liked to thumb their noses at authority, even to the point of deliberately leaving the apostrophe out of their name to show their contempt for the rules of grammar. But, apart from rowdy behaviour and petty crime, most biker gangs were not a problem until the 1960s. That's when some gangs, the most prominent of which are the Hells Angels and their arch rivals the Outlaws, turned really bad.

More recent arrivals on the organized crime scene are Asian gangs. And, if police have trouble penetrating the "code of silence" that stops most Mafia members from talking about their operations, imagine their difficulty in dealing with the Asian gangs. The cultural and language gulfs between the Asian and Western communities are leaving police groping for ways to stop the gangs.

Since the 1970s, Asian gangs have been moving into Canada, replacing the Mafia in many areas. Members of secret Chinese societies known as triads hide among legitimate immigrants from Hong Kong and elsewhere. One government report describes 16 of these triad members who made it into Canada as among "the world's" most ruthless and vicious criminals." They've shown this in many places including Australia. John Newman was a state politician who had crusaded long and hard against Asian gangs in his constituency. In September 1994, he was shot and killed in his driveway. Police in Mr. Newman's area have had a tough time finding anyone brave enough to testify against the gangs even after they have been victimized. And, it's the same in Canada.

They prey on people in their own community. They use terror as an effective tactic in keeping their victims silent. As 70% of Hong Kong immigrants settle in British Columbia that's where the triads do most of their work. But, Asian gangs are also very active in Toronto and increasingly so in Edmonton, Calgary, and Montreal.

Kenneth Yates, a top detective in Toronto, calls the triads "criminally brilliant." This does not mean that they turn their backs on "old-fashioned" crime. The Asian gangs are involved in drugs, extortion, robbery, gambling, smuggling of aliens, prostitution, and other crimes. However, they specialize in so-called "white-collar" crimes. They are master forgers and have been working some very sophisticated fraud rackets and credit-card swindles. Vietnamese gangs specialize in home invasions. A group breaks into a home while the occupants are present. They terrorize their victims, usually Asians, in order to force them to tell them where they keep their valuables (many Asians don't use banks and keep their money and jewel in their homes).

The smuggling of aliens into the United States is said to bring in $2.4 billion a year. Most of the people smuggled in can't afford the $30,000 cost of a one-way ticket. As a result, they end up working for the triads as drug pushers, prostitutes, and enforcers to pay off their debt.

Worldwide, the Chinese triads have become enormous. The Sun Yee On group is said to have more than 40,00O members and to be active in North America, Asia, and Australia. The 14K group has 20,000 members, with operations in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. These are the major league triads; in total there are 50 to 60 triads, most of them based in Hong Kong, with a global membership of more than 100,000. There is no evil genius at the head of all triads. They all compete with each other, often very violently, for territory.

But, there is cooperation too. Police are uncovering more and more links among the Sicilian Mafia, Colombian drug lords, and the Chinese triads. The heroin trade in America, once dominated by the U. S. Mafia, is now controlled by the triads. Meetings have taken place in Canada involving Chinese, Colombian Lebanese, Jamaican, Jewish, Iranian, Nigerian, and Russian groups. The Russians are said to be one of the fastest-growing organized crime groups. According to one estimate, there 32,000 Russian criminals active around the world. They have linked up with the Italian Mafia which is investing heavily in Central and Eastern Europe. An Italian investigation in 1994 uncovered a scheme to buy an oil refinery, a steel mill, and a bank in Russia; the price tag on the deal was $2.6 billion. The East Europeans have muscled their way into the crime scene in Toronto, and are expanding into Montreal and Vancouver. In its 1996 report, the federal Criminal Intelligence Service says the East Europeans "engage in a wide variety of criminal activity, from extortion, murder, and large-scale theft, to money laundering, international fraud, and the smuggling of drugs, cigarettes, weapons, and automobiles."

As organized crime goes global it's getting more and more difficult for police forces to penetrate its networks and put the leaders and followers behind bars.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. The following appeared in The Economist. When it comes to treating gangsters with a guilty mixture of awe and horror, America has no equal." Meanwhile, New York police Lieutenant Louis Barbaria says: "It surprises me to this day how little support we get from the public when we go after a motorcycle gang." Discuss these statements.

2. Placing the sale and distribution of now illegal drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, under government control would have the effect of cutting into organized crime's biggest source of revenue; but, would it be an appropriate activity for government? Discuss.