A Fresno police detective was arrested Tuesday on federal charges that accuse him of taking a $20,000 bribe from a suspected drug dealer. Vice intelligence squad detective Derik Carson Kumagai, 40, and alleged co-conspirator Saykham Somphoune, 40, of Clovis, were booked into the Fresno County Jail on charges of conspiracy, bribery and extortion, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Cullers said at a news conference in U.S. District Court in Fresno. A criminal complaint says Somphoune, who is not a law enforcement officer, also took or agreed to accept a bribe from the suspected drug dealer. [continues 468 words]
Man, 23, and a Teenage Suspect Charged in Seizure of $360,000 of Cocaine and Marijuana It was the biggest bust ever by London police, but on the streets three bricks of cocaine doesn't amount to a "hill of beans," says an outreach worker. And maybe that's the problem. If taking three kilograms of cocaine and a press to make it into sellable bricks for $100,000 each off the market at once - as London police did in a seizure announced last week - doesn't make the stuff scarce, how big and how widespread is London's drug scene? [continues 403 words]
IT'S official - the Hells Angels are a bona fide criminal organization in Manitoba. The designation of the Hells under the province's schedule of criminal organizations, announced Friday by Justice Minister Andrew Swan, makes Manitoba the first North American jurisdiction to deem the biker gang a criminal outfit. While welcomed by law enforcement, the designation only affects prosecutions against gang members under provincial laws, not federal laws against guns, drugs and violent crimes. Swan said it means Crown attorneys will not need to call expert witnesses to prove in each case the Hells Angels are a criminal organization when gang members and associates are being prosecuted under a provincial law. [continues 230 words]
If there is anyone who thinks legalizing pot is without its evils, they had better look to Washington state and Colorado. Washington state has experienced an influx of organized crime, including biker gangs and cartels. This also is taking place in Colorado,where dispensaries are being used as distribution centers by these same groups. Take a dose of reality along with John Morgan. Morgan never fails to point out in his commercials distrust for the insurance companies but doesn't seem to be able to present a clear, simple initiative proposed on a ballot. How many bereaved families will he represent when some pothead he helped put on the street kills someone while DUI? Does the government become liable for endorsing pot smokers who develop lung cancer when it promotes eradification of smoking tobacco? H.L. West Lutz [end]
Unless something radical happens, in less than four months the activities of thousands of Canadians - some of them desperately ill - will be recriminalized under federal law. On April 1, 2014, when Ottawa's new corporate medical marijuana system takes effect, the right granted by the state to Canadians since 2001 to grow cannabis for personal medical use will be completely nullified. That means about 25,000 patients who are growing their own medicine - and have been in some cases for a dozen years - will be breaking the law if they continue to grow even one plant. The same applies to more than 4,000 designated growers. [continues 478 words]
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered the provincial government to rewrite some of its claims against the Nanaimo Hells Angels in a long-running civil suit over the bikers' clubhouse. Justice Barry Davies agreed with some of the Hells Angels' concerns that the pleadings of the director of civil forfeiture were too vague or over-reaching, making it difficult for the bikers to defend themselves when the case finally goes to trial next March. The Nanaimo clubhouse, at 805 Victoria Rd., was seized on Nov. 9, 2007, beginning a six-year battle in B.C. Supreme Court over its ownership. [continues 397 words]
Annual 4/20 Gathering in Golden Gate Park Burns Up City Resources Every April 20 in San Francisco - at about 20 minutes past 4 p.m. - a giant cloud of smoke rises from the eastern end of Golden Gate Park, where thousands of people congregate to celebrate and consume their drug of choice. Cannabis, marijuana, weed. The unofficial, unpermitted celebration in Sharon Meadow has grown significantly in recent years, from a few hundred happy campers a decade ago to thousands of people - perhaps as many as 10,000, as there is no "official" count - swarming Stanyan Street from the Haight-Ashbury to Hippie Hill in the park, according to residents. [continues 402 words]
The Manitoba Warriors formed two decades ago from a group of drug-slingers who rapidly grew the gang into an organized and feared criminal group, one which today casts its shadow across several provinces despite several major crackdown efforts by police. And with Winnipeg police currently having more than 300 Manitoba Warriors (MW) members and associates in their records, there's fear the gang's growth will continue, leaving it "one of the dominant organized street gangs" which battles for control of the lucrative drug trade in Winnipeg's North End and inner-city areas and in remote communities. [continues 837 words]
A veteran Toronto police officer who called himself The Terminator "egregiously violated" the Charter rights of a 22-year-old man by subjecting him to "an unlawful and humiliating strip search in a public place," an Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled. Const. Irwin Correa, an officer with the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), was singled out in the decision as "intimidating, overbearing and oppressive" during the questioning and arrest of Ohene Darteh in September 2010. The judge also dismissed a possession of cocaine charge against Darteh. [continues 700 words]
While more and more U.S. states move to liberalize marijuana laws, Canada is going in the opposite direction As of November, any Canadian caught with as few as six cannabis plants faces a mandatory six-month minimum prison term. Ironically, the new rules came into effect at the same time that Washington state and Colorado voted to tax and regulate the recreational use of marijuana by adults. The results of the legalization measures in those states came as a surprise to many Canadians, including, presumably, Prime Minister Stephen Harper. When asked about the four former Vancouver mayors who publicly support the regulation and taxation of marijuana in Canada, he argued "it would inhibit our trade generally because they're certainly not going to make that move in the United States." [continues 687 words]
Last week the RCMP arrested four men with links to the White Boy Posse, a street gang based out of Edmonton. Two of those men were Lloydminster residents. The arrests came in connection to three murders and one attempted murder; one of the murders and the attempted murder took place just north of Lloydminster on Range Road 11. According to Lloydminster RCMP Cpl. Shayne Hartwell, there isn't a great deal of gang activity in Lloydminster, but the White Boy Posse are active in the Border City. [continues 1179 words]
Much is being said in the media about legalizing marijuana. The focus seems always to be on reduction of revenue to gangs, thus reduction of gang violence. But little if anything is being said about the probable result of making it easier to purchase without a large growth in usage. Given that it is a "mind-altering" substance (if not so, why the big appetite for use of it?), this will result in a great increase of users driving cars, bikes and motorcycles with their minds in an altered condition. [continues 131 words]
Editor: The vote by B.C. municipal leaders to lobby the federal government to decriminalize marijuana is a step in the right direction. There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana and frees users from criminal records. What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical as the marijuana plant is relatively harmless. Marijuana prohibition, on the other hand, is deadly. As long as drug cartels and biker gangs control marijuana distribution, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin. Marijuana prohibition is a gateway-drug policy. Robert Sharpe policy analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy csdp.org [end]
The vote by B.C. municipal leaders to decriminalize marijuana is a step in the right direction. There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana and frees users from criminal records. What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. The marijuana plant is relatively harmless. Marijuana prohibition is deadly. As long as drug cartels and biker gangs control marijuana distribution, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will come into contact with hard drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin. Marijuana prohibition is a gateway drug policy. Robert Sharpe Washington, DC [end]
Coquihalla Highway Has Helped Organized Crime to Spread into the Interior The takedown of high-ranking Hells Angels members in a raid at a Kelowna clubhouse is a stark reminder that the Central Okanagan is not immune to the gang activity that has plagued the Lower Mainland. Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill McKinnon said his city has been attracting a growing number of gangs, including the Independent Soldiers and Throttle Lockers, since the Hells Angels first set up shop there in 2003. [continues 793 words]
First in a four-part series This isn't Detroit. It isn't Compton, Calif. We don't have overcrowded and crumbling inner cities. But when the Centers for Disease Control last November announced that death rates for prescription drugs had reached epidemic proportions nationally, New Mexico was at the top of the list. Our death rate from prescription drug overdoses surpassed even our traditionally tops-in-the-nation death rate from heroin overdoses. "This is the time to bring a sense of urgency to parents, schools, coaches, physicians and pharmacists," U.S. Attorney Ken Gonzales said in an interview. [continues 1999 words]
During a span of several months in early 2006, police wiretapped Carmelo Venneri's phone calls and conducted secret surveillance outside his home, north of Montreal, establishing that the bar manager had become "an important pillar" in supplying a gang with cocaine. While it was established that Mr. Venneri was a trafficker, he was not a member of the syndicate for whom he dealt cocaine, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday, offering guidance on how courts should define membership in a criminal organization, which brings stiffer penalties. [continues 499 words]
The Stop the Violence BC campaign and advocates for the legalization of marijuana are responding to comments made in last week's emotionally charged city council meeting. "I think the mayor [John Dooley] is well meaning," said Dr. Evan Wood with the campaign. "But really we need an evidence-based and factual discussion. Clearly his views are inconsistent with the Chief Medical Officer of BC, the Health Officers Council representing all major regions of this province, let alone the voices of law enforcement and supreme court justices and other legal experts." [continues 982 words]
If Colin Kinsley was still the boss of Prince George city hall, there might be a ninth name on that list of eight B.C. mayors in favour of decriminalization of marijuana. He's on side with the mayors of Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver, Vernon, Armstrong, Enderby, Lake Country and Metchosin in their stand against the current federal pot laws, contained in a letter sent April 26 to Premier Christy Clark, Opposition NDP leader Adrian Dix and Conservative leader John Cummins. [continues 711 words]
Having just returned from Colombia - once known as the cocaine capital of the world - it's not hard to see why impoverished Colombians turn to the cultivation and production of coca leaf, cocaine and opium poppies. The climate is receptive, money is scarce, and there are few substitutes for such a lucrative crop. The so-called "balloon effect" also makes any crackdown on production ineffective, since crop cultivation, drug laboratories, and transportation routes squeezed in one area will inevitably pop up elsewhere. [continues 701 words]
