Why B.C. and Canada could be attracting Mexican drug cartel activity
RCMP revealed Wednesday that 3 men connected to Mexican cartel have been charged with drug offences
A Mexican journalist and author who fled to Canada after reporting on cartel activities says that transnational drug traffickers from Mexico are increasingly seeing Canada as a base of operations.
Federal Mounties arrested three men in Surrey, B.C., who they say are tied to an organized crime group with links to Mexican drug cartels believed to be importing cocaine to Canada.
Cpl. Arash Seyed told reporters at a Wednesday news conference that one of the suspects is a Mexican national who had arrived in Canada legally, and two of the suspects are Canadian citizens.
While answering questions from reporters, Seyed said that Mounties had been successful in disrupting transnational crime operations while acknowledging they are seeing more activity on that front.
"Criminal organizations try to get a foothold anywhere where there is a market, so they are opportunistic to operate very much like business ventures," Seyed said.
"In this particular case, there were a lot of local criminal gangs and organized crime groups who may actually not be very friendly to each other. However, they would have been involved in this drug operation."
Seyed said as soon as Canadian police learned about the cartel attempting to set up in B.C., police began working to prevent the group from gaining a "foothold" in Canada.
Mexican author says Canada is attractive to cartels
Luis Nájera, who co-wrote The Wolfpack: The Millennial Mobsters Who Brought Chaos and the Cartels to the Canadian Underworld, moved to Delta, B.C., in 2008 after fleeing Mexico.
The journalist says that Vancouver is attractive to Mexican cartels — highly organized criminal groups that have participated in a drug war that has killed thousands of people — as it is home to Canada's biggest port.
"There's a well-known corridor from Vancouver all the way down to California and all the way down to Sinaloa, even lower Mexico to Manzanillo, which is one of the most important ports in Mexico," he said.
"You can take things from Vancouver into Asia, and also you can bring or distribute things from Vancouver into Western Canada ... particularly Alberta."
Nájera said that one of the men who was charged was likely part of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Seyed said the members are connected to "one of the main Mexican drug cartels" and that U.S. authorities arrested one of the leaders of the group in July.
He did not name the cartel but said reporters could "connect the dots."
U.S. officials recently announced the July arrest of 76-year-old Ismael (El Mayo) Zambada Garcia in New Mexico, saying he was a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, described as "one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world."
Nájera says Canada is attractive to Mexican drug traffickers because of the Atlantic region's proximity to Europe and the fact that much of the country's population lives close to the U.S. border.
When asked why traffickers might choose to operate in Canada, which is much farther away from Mexico than the United States, the author said the U.S. has a far more sophisticated infrastructure to fight organized crime.
"There's a lot of competition, internal competition too, because organized crime groups from Mexico are actively engaged and operating within the United States," he said. "Here is a little bit different."
RCMP tout success
The Wednesday announcement of the seizures came after RCMP in B.C. said they dismantled "the largest, most sophisticated drug superlab in Canada."
At that time, RCMP said they had evidence that the site was being used to make methamphetamine using P2P (phenyl-2-propanone), something not previously seen in Western Canada but common among Mexican cartels.
"Mexico is probably the biggest cocaine exporter into Canada, especially the West Coast here given our proximity," Seyed told Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC's On The Coast, on Wednesday.
"Certainly, there's been attempts to enter the market here and they do, but we've been quite successful in stopping them from getting into the market here and actually setting up, as opposed to many parts of the United States."
Seyed added that RCMP, in co-ordination with the Canada Border Services Agency, are looking to beef up security at ports.
With files from Liam Britten, On The Coast and The Canadian Press