What is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) doing and where is it going in the fight against organized crime in Quebec?
These are questions asked by active and retired federal police officers who spoke with Press lately.
Formerly a reference and a leader in the fight against the Mafia, Division C – name given to the RCMP division in Quebec – is no longer a shadow of itself, we deplore .
Joint Organized Crime Investigation Unit (UMECO) investigators have carried out a few successful projects against fentanyl traffickers in recent years, but the last known major C Division investigation of established criminal organizations has been carried out. between 2016 and 2019 and targeted money recyclers whose alleged leaders were based in Toronto. This investigation, dubbed Collector, is currently experiencing difficult disclosure of evidence in court.
In 2014, RCMP investigators stuffed the office of former criminal lawyer Loris Cavaliere with microphones and cameras, but they were assisting the Sûreté du Québec, which was then carrying out the Magot-Mastiff investigation which beheaded the organized crime in Montreal a year later.
We have to go back 10 years to find the last major project of the RCMP in Quebec against influential members of the Montreal mafia. This project, dubbed Clemenza and carried out by UMECO, could have achieved even more resounding results than Operation Coliseum, but it was fanned by the murder of the aspiring-godfather Salvatore Montagna, because the suspects knew that the Federal police intercepted their communications and they were under investigation.
Later, in court, defense motions did the rest, and all of the defendants, about 40 in all, were brought to a halt in the court process, because the prosecution refused to disclose the technique of intercepting communications.
The last real success of the federal police against the Mafia in Quebec therefore dates back to Colisée, in 2006.
PHOTO IVANOH DEMERS, PRESS ARCHIVES
Nicolo Rizzuto, during his arrest in connection with Operation Colosseum, on the morning of November 22, 2006
On November 22 of that year, UMECO investigators arrested 90 people and guillotined the Rizzuto clan in what is still the largest anti-mafia raid in Canadian history today.
“In Division C, we are still talking about the Colosseum. That’s the problem, it dates from 15 years ago, ”said a source still active in the federal police.
Another observation: major projects involving drug importers, which investigators regularly carried out successfully during the 1990s and 2000s, are rare today.
Several factors
There are surely other investigations against organized crime carried out by the UMECO of Division C since Collecteur in 2017, but they have obviously not (yet) resulted.
We hear that investigations “rarely succeed”, and one thing is certain, it undermines the motivation of the troops.
Our sources target several factors: a heavy structure and bureaucracy, competent people sitting in the wrong chairs, others who think more about their careers, diminished expertise with the retirement of several seasoned investigators, inexperienced supervisors and investigators, little investment in technology, rare or non-existent training in the fight against organized crime compared to workshops on harassment, profiling, mental health and others which are held regularly, from high level criminal sources less numerous, a certain complacency in a role of assistance to the American police forces or the Sûreté du Québec, and we are done.
“Organized crime has adapted, but not us. Division C would be able to carry out large-scale projects with long-term impacts, but the ambition of the past is no longer there, ”another source told us.
However, it is not the desire to do battle that is lacking among RCMP investigators. Knowledge either. The federal police know a lot about criminal groups, as demonstrated with passion and openness by the two employees met by Press for the portrait of organized crime in Montreal published Monday.
A mysterious displacement
As if that were not enough, about three weeks ago, the big boss of investigations of Division C was assigned to “a special investigation” in Ottawa without this trip, as sudden as it was unexpected, having been officially. announced and explained to employees. According to our information, this senior leader was even withdrawn from his service vehicle and other privileges.
His replacement will have his work cut out for him to boost morale and rally the troops.
But the opportunity may be right.
Division C is a budget of approximately $ 180 million per year for 900 police officers, including no patrollers.
This is about one-fifth of the budget of the Sûreté du Québec, which however has more than 3,500 uniformed patrollers and police officers in several specialized services.
Division C, which has already been and should still be today a benchmark in the fight against organized crime, is not making too many waves and seems to want to go between the wall and the paint for several years.
Canadian and Quebec taxpayers have the right to expect that the money they pay to fight criminal groups will be well spent.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of Press.