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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
Canada: A haven for Mafiosi of every sort
Part 1 - In the first of a 22-part series we investigate how slack laws benefit organized crime from around the globe
By Antonio Nicaso
Originally Published: 2001-06-24
Newmarket ? "The Mafia is strong and well-rooted in Canada. But other criminal groups are operating with an organizational capacity and a turnover no lower than those of the Mafia."
Ben Soave is one of the point men at the RCMP. He’s been leading the special Organized Crime Task Force in the Greater Toronto Area, and he and his men are credited, among other things, with the capture of Alfonso Caruana, who is alleged to be one of the most powerful bosses of international drug trafficking.
Fifty-one, married, two children, and in the RCMP since 1970, Soave also worked in Italy, Peru and Singapore. He went undercover for six years in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and he’s now considered an important reference point in the fight against organized crime.
"Canada is heaven for mafiosi of every sort," he says, rearranging the stack of documents on his desk in his Newmarket office. A bas-relief of a group of Carabinieri (Italian military police) is quite prominently displayed behind him. He doesn’t hide his link with Italy ("It’s just like I never left") and he has very clear ideas about all kinds of Mafia: "The laws we have, far from scaring them away, encourage criminals to come to Canada." The G7 countries warned Ottawa about this. The laws against money laundering are inadequate, there’s no limit to the entrance of cash and, most of all, banks are not required to inform the police about suspicious transactions.
In 1990, the government was forced to review legislation on this subject, after two U.S. Grand Juries investigated certain transactions involving two branch offices, one of the Bank of Nova Scotia and the other of the Royal Bank of Canada, operating in the Caribbean.
"There were suspicions that the money deposited was the fruit of drug dealing," confirms the former vice Director of the FBI, Oliver "Buch" Revell.
"Today, in the case of suspicious transactions, bank officials may inform the police, but the law does not compel them to do so," explains Soave. "If a boss enters Canada with a suitcase full of cash, based on the laws currently in force we can do little if anything at all," he admits.
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