I heard your interview on Peter Warren's show today, it was great. Keep it up.

Who ever said that organized crime has no presence in Canadian ports must be:

a) a federal liberal party member

b) a member of a criminal organization

c) both a and b

d) all of the above

Seriously, who said that?

back to the street crime how many of those end users are floating in the streets of NO or digesting in the GI tract of an aligator or Bull shark. Local drug trade will very certainly be down, as the whole infrastructure of is all of NO. But you can equally be certain that organized crime will cut their losses there and increase their distribution networks elsewhere. It occours to me that law enforcement intelligence agencies should bear this in mind as a method of covert intelligence insertion.

Daryl

Good call Daryl. The tragedy of Katrina can best be overcome by looking for opportunities to do things better. NOLA has an opportunity to improve their police force, clean up some crime and rebuild bigger and better.

Good morning Kate. One thing I have not been able to find anywhere is the normal death rate in NOLA. The actual number of people who die every day in a city of 500,000. Their murder rate averages one a day. Auto accidents must average two a week. Add in illness and old age and I'd be surprised if the total death rate in NOLA post Katrina is not much higher than normal.

The crack heads must be going crazy for a hit

What about the drugs found on a Martin's family ship in Nova Scotia last year? 83 pounds of cocaine was found in a routine search.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1088698898525_84108098/?hub=TopStories

Seems to me that if they'd wanted to catch the people involved they'd have replace the drug with a decoy drug and put a GPS beacon in the bag.

Instead, they simply removed the drug stash and sent the ship on it's way.

Kyla
I wondered that myself, why not track it to the buyers and get some useful information from them.With that large amount they were looking at serious time and may have been more than helpful.
Another possibility is that the cover was blown and the buyers would be staying far away.
Anyhoo, someone sure lost a lot of money on that deal.
Its fun to speculate where the ultimate destination of the drugs was.
Canada....Montreal,Toronto,Hells Angels in Quebec or were the drugs to remain on board and head out of port to the next port.
So much speculation,if you had a contact in the Hells Angels you might get some answers.

Another Question, how many drugs come into Montreal Port or Nova Scotia we never hear about?

Port Authority employees and other inside workers quite often involved.

My remarks were incorrect and inflammatory.
Quite often involved should read (sometimes-rarely) involved.

Kyla, GPS, good idea.. just an innocent looking cellphone would do. Can't do that though. Probably lead directly to some Liberal fat cat.

You remember the Libranos snatched for drugs in Victoria.. eh?

Rebarbarian, *Opportunities to do things better in NOLA* - Way to go kid. Not only Looking forward, but being positive about it.

Sure beats throwing in the towel.

I admit taking back a high-jacked Ottawa will be no picnic, but out of the mess can come a stronger democracy for Canada. '3s TG

Regarding port security in Canada, there was a great article in the financial magazine that comes with the National Post a couple years back. Cover was a Hell's Angel with the cover tag of something like "Who's Watching our Ports?" Primary focus of the article was how frequently known criminals were able to obtain jobs, including ones with security implications, at ports all over Canada. Fascinating reading if you can find it somewhere.

To the degree that is the case that the problems were exacerbated by the undergound drug market, it does seem to me that the problems would have been ameliorated if said market were in the hands of those more responsible than organized crime & government, such as the tobacco, alcohol, and pharma corporations, for example.

Hi Kate.I heard you on Peter Warren yesterday.You did a great interview with him.You have inspired me to join your blog. I had heard about you before from one of your Town folk.My daughters boyfriend to be exact.I feel strongly about what all your people are saying.I do have a hard time though exspessing my thoughts as many of the people who are posting comments.So i will probably spend most of my time reading the comments.Thanks for doing what your doing.I admire your courage..signed Cheryle from Saskatoon

Doug: Why did the government announce that they'd found the drugs? They should have kept it quiet. If a suitcase is found with drugs in an airport, they let the person pick it up as if nothing had happened. Then they arrest them with it in their possession.

They could have put a sensor on the grate and had an alarm go off when a diver tried to open it.

My theory is that it was not handled to catch anyone because the ship belongs to the Martin family and carries his wife's name. Authorities probably suspected that people higher up than them were involved. That of there was an outright bribe at the time.

Nothing else makes sense to me.

Colin, my reference to organized crime and Canadian ports was incomplete and abbreviated. What I was thinking about is something I saw posted on the Shotgun a number of months ago that suggested that labor unions on Canadian docks had not been corrupted by organized crime. (It may have been in reference to Vancouver.) In fact the same post quoted RCMP intelligence to the effect that they knew organized criminal activities were absolutely taking place on the docks. They simply did not think the Canadian labor unions were part of it. I simply don't believe it. After what we've seen with Gagliano, I think that a lot of powerful people in Canada don't want Canadian labor unions to be scrutinized too carefully. After all, labor unions are part of the brotherhood of socialist leaning governments.

I think Greg's observations are perspicacious. Since organized crime is international in ways which government is not, and since it is illegitimate in ways which business is not, it does seem reasonable that major traffic portals and the unions that are de facto in charge of the workers thereto would be principal targets for such operations.

If it is the case that illegal drugs were part of the problem, then it would seem to me to be likely that, say, a hurricane in Chicago during prohibition would have caused similar problems. Since there doesn't seem to be any indication of misbehaviour in New Orleans by the legal booze companies, it occurs to me that operations like theirs would be better off handling other drugs. At least they would have pre-positioned emergency stock like Wal-Mart and Home Depot did.

Kyla,PMPM is a liar and a thief. Thats been proven many times but I just cant believe he would stoop low enough to import cocaine using his ships.
Im assuming his ship was an innocent mule.Perhaps the crew knew but they were let go without being charged.
Divers were required to install the drugs and they knew exactly how to do it so they had some ship knowledge and diving skills.
Also to remove the drugs would require the same ship and diving knowledge. Talking to divers at the port of discovery would be interesting and also the port security.
Your telephone yellow pages would give you divers numbers and white pages for port security. You would probably have to move there, hang around and talk to people. I dont think over the phone will work.
If a person had some time and money it sure would make for an interesting investigation.

The buyers never showed,tipped off somehow.

Well, on 2004-03-24 the Globe & Mail did report that Myriam Bédard testified before the Commons Public Accounts Committee that: "In September of 2001, Marc Lefrançois, then the president of Via, suggested that she start her own advertising agency, because Groupaction is “building a huge empire and they're not doing things the right way. “'They are involved in drug trafficking,'” Ms. Bedard recalled him saying, “sooner or later someone is going to have to take over Groupaction's contracts.” A week later, he told her he'd said too much and suggested she was best to forget it."

"Can anyone say "corrupt oligarchy""?
Yes siree, Bub: AdScam Martin, Alfonso Gagliano, Jean Chretien, Don Boudria, Librano$$$$$$$, et al.,...>>>

The evacuation of Mary Landrieu

Ian Schwartz of The Political Teen has posted the amazing interview of Senator Mary Landrieu by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this morning (accessible here). You have to see it to believe it. She seems to accentuate her drawl as the interview progresses and she digs herself in deeper. What a hack. Is there any chance she can be evacuated from Washington? (Courtesy of Instapundit.)

The ROCKET adds: Mary Landrieu has gone stark raving mad. It's funny, though, how seldom these MSM interviewers ask her about the fact that her brother is the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. Plus, of course, her father was the Mayor of New Orleans. Can anyone say "corrupt oligarchy"? Another time, that would be a topic of interest to the MSM, but not now, when they are hunting bigger game.

My usual philosophy is, "Never give an inch." But this time, I'm ready to recant, even to apologize. For I once referred to Ms. Landrieu as "somewhat fetching." I take it all back; she is fetching no longer. To understand the context of my misguided semi-compliment, search our site for "Mary Landrieu nude." Really.>> more
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