Davinder Singh of Delta, and Thai Hoang Nguyen of Surrey, were denied bail last week after allegedly attempting to buy 85 kilo of cocaine

Davinder Singh of Delta, and Thai Hoang Nguyen of Surrey, were denied bail last week in Bakersfield, Calif., after allegedly attempting to buy 85 kilos of cocaine with almost $1.5 million U.S.U.S. authorities also announced charges last week against six Canadians - including four from B.C. - after a two-year investigation into another multi-million dollar smuggling ring.Three of the B.C. accused - Shane Kelter, Walther Edgardo (Sharky) Orellana Aguilar and John (Keith) Wark - have not been extradited, while a fourth - Jason I. Ming Wei - was picked up at Los Angeles International Airport Sept. 28 and remains in custody.Trucker Saran told U.S. officials after he was arrested last Wednesday that he had left his truck unattended for several hours at the New Westminster office of Concord Transportation where anyone could have placed the pills in his load.But U.S. special agent Ruirk Pitstick refuted that claim in court documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun."I know that drug traffickers do not normally entrust large quantities of drugs to unwitting or unknowing couriers," Pitstick said. "This is true because an unknowing courier might inadvertently discover the drugs and turn them over to the police."In the Singh-Nguyen bust, agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration followed the Canadians and two American associates, Sokha Bhopal and Vath Lim, last month as they allegedly arranged and completed a cocaine for cash deal worth $1,487,500 U.S.A tip about the deal came from a confidential informant who told the DEA that Bhopal was looking to buy cocaine from Mexico. The DEA then engaged in a sting in which an agent posed as the cocaine supplier arranging meetings and phonecalls with the suspects through the informant.
"As the negotiations continued, it became apparent that Nguyen was the primary individual attempting to purchase cocaine," Special Agent Trent O'Neill said in his affidavit. "Nguyen indicated he was having difficulty locating his 'accountant' to obtain the money...Nguyen indicated he would be ready with the money for the cocaine transaction on Friday, Sept. 19, 2008."As the DEA watched clandestinely, the four men allegedly packed the money into two separate vehicles and met the agent in the parking lot of a restaurant.
On Oct. 2, a grand jury indicted the two Canadians and their associates with "conspiracy to distribute cocaine" and "attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine."

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Hells Angels remain the most powerful Drug-gang violence that has ripped through Metro Vancouver in recent months has been linked to gangwarfare

B.C.-based organized crime groups are controlling the sale of methamphetamine across Canada and abroad, according to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada's annual report.
Meth production in the province was up in 2007 "primarily to meet expanding international market consumption," said the report, which marks trends in organized crime across the country."The number of super-labs in Canada indicates the capacity to produce significant quantities for foreign distribution," the report said.In 2007, seizures of Canadian-produced methamphetamine were interdicted in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and to a lesser extent, China, Taiwan, India and Iran. The majority of the groups involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine are based in B.C."B.C. is also still a major producer of marijuana for cross-border smuggling, with cocaine being brought back into Canada by crime groups, the report said.
The resulting drug-gang violence that has ripped through Metro Vancouver in recent months is a hallmark of the crime groups, the report said."Violence and intimidation are used to solidify or further a crime group's involvement within a criminal market. It is usually directed either externally against criminal rivals or internally within their own organization to maintain discipline," it said.
"In some instances, lower-level criminal groups will pose a more immediate and direct public safety threat through acts of violence that are often carried out in public places. These violent, lower-level criminal groups are largely but not entirely composed of street gangs, some of which have committed assaults or shootings in public places."
Police say the Hells Angels remain the most powerful organized crime group in B.C.
More than 900 crime groups were identified as operating in Canada in 2007, about the same number as the year before.Their major centres of criminal operation are Metro Vancouver, southern Ontario and Montreal, the report said. Some of the B.C. crime groups are also involved in human trafficking, it said."A small number of organized crime groups, mostly based in B.C. and Quebec, are involved in the facilitation of international trafficking in persons (TIP), it said."Conversely, several street gangs are active within the domestic TIP market for the purposes of sexual exploitation. These groups facilitate the recruitment, control, movement and exploitation of Canadian-born females in the domestic sex trade, primarily in strip bars in several cities across the country."
RCMP E Division media liaison Sgt. Tim Shields said police in B.C. are fighting back against crime groups in the province."Today there are more than 17 police units and government agencies actively working together to combat organized crime," Shields said Friday. "But this is not just a problem for the police to solve in isolation. It is a problem for the entire community to take a stand against."
Shields said the marijuana trade in B.C. is estimated to be worth $6 billion per year."This figure does not include revenue from the sale of crystal meth, cocaine and heroin, and from identity theft, credit card fraud, prostitution, gun smuggling, human trafficking, and money laundering," he said. "But even more alarming is the violent crime associated to organized crime such as shootings in public places, kidnappings and the murders of innocent people."Not only are the gangs involved in drug trafficking, but they are also increasingly committing fraud and identity theft as technology makes it easier."Technology changes very fast and our reliance on technology is growing at a phenomenal rate," RCMP Commissioner William Elliott told a news conference in Montreal. "It is a challenge for us to keep up, which is all the more reason why we need to collaborate more and I think this report is an example of us doing it."The report said wireless technology allows fraud artists to steal payment card information without entering a store. They can gather the information from a point-of-sale terminal inside while sitting in a car nearby. The information is then transferred to illegal debit card factories worldwide within seconds.
The potential for profits is huge, making it very attractive to well-established organized crime groups traditionally involved in activities like drug trafficking.
"As we move more and more to the Internet and the technology being used, the risks are increasing. A lot of the public are not very careful about their identity," said Elliott, who is also the chairman of Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC), a grouping of 380 law enforcement agencies across Canada.
"One of the reasons why organized crime has been as successful as it [is], is because they are very adaptable. It's not as if they have given up any of their traditional markets but, as new technology and as changes occur in society, they are also changing and taking advantage of the areas they can exploit

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