The arrival of Mexican drug traffickers, along with increased activity by outlaw motorcycle gangs, is changing the face of organized crime in Alberta.
Mexican cartels have long played a role in exporting narcotics that end up in Canada, but the RCMP’s commanding officer in Alberta says the syndicates are now basing people here to import and distribute cocaine and other drugs.
“That’s a very interesting development because they’ve essentially eliminated the middlemen. Those people are directly from Mexico, they’re key players in a Mexican cartel who have established themselves in Alberta, and that’s a concern,” said Deputy Commissioner Marianne Ryan.
In Calgary, the FOB gang and its rivals, the FOB Killers, had been responsible for bringing large amounts of cocaine into the city. The FOB Killers (FK) were closely aligned with Vancouver’s United Nations gang, which for years sent members to Mexico to do business with the drug cartels.
However, the environment has dramatically changed in recent years: UN gang leader Clay Roueche is serving a 30-year drug trafficking sentence in the United States, and several other key members have been imprisoned or killed — including three murdered in Mexico. In Calgary, a long-running war between FOB and FK was responsible for at least 25 homicides between 2002 and 2009, and many veteran members who haven’t been killed are now behind bars in connection with the violence.
