RCMP commissioner says organized crime and terrorists working closely

OTTAWA (CP) - The head of the RCMP says his agency is increasingly concerned about evidence that organized crime groups are helping to fund terrorists.

Giuliano Zaccardelli's observations Monday may come as a shock to some, but not to those who monitor trends in law enforcement. Almost every conceivable type of crime racket helps to finance terrorists whose chief goal is killing Westerners, said one expert in the field.

That includes hashish baggies being peddled on street corners, cocaine trafficking, prostitution, pick-pocketing, knock-off designer items and credit card fraud.

Zaccardelli wasn't quite that specific during his appearance before a Senate committee Monday. But he said the evidence is clear, and continually mounting.

"That is a trend we're watching and monitoring and has the potential to cause us some serious problems," Zaccardelli, commissioner of the RCMP, told senators on a Senate defence committee.

"There seems to be an emerging trend. . .that some terrorist groups are clearly using certain organized crime groups to funnel or to fund some of their activities."

Images of Osama bin Laden sitting around basement tables with pinstripe-suited mobsters to plot drug deals and terrorist bombings are probably far-flung.

But there are more subtle links. And Zaccardelli says the RCMP is paying increasingly close attention.

Zaccardelli said that terrorist ties to organized crime were traditionally low-level, or not serious enough to make it a top RCMP priority.

He told the committee that his force has become increasingly vigilant since the terrorist attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Terrorism is a real and present danger. . .It has been said it is not a matter of whether - but only of when - Canada will encounter its own 9-11."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Zaccardelli's charge came as no surprise.

"It's a longstanding concern," he said.

"We do know that certain organized crime activities do lead to money going back to terrorist groups.

"That's been an item that (concerns) intelligence forces - not just in Canada, but around the world."

One expert said the links to terrorism are literally as old as the mafia.

The Sicilian mob was formed as a loosely assembled group of vigilantes who sought to overthrow a succession of foreign rulers from their homeland. Crime provided the financing, said John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank.

The same is true of the Chinese triad, which was initially a resistance movement against the Manchu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century.

Colombia's leftist guerrillas, the IRA and Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers have all used the proceeds of crime to finance politically motivated violence.

"It's ancient," Thompson said.

"Almost every terrorist group in the world today is involved in organized crime. Almost all terrorist groups around the world use organized crime to pay for their operations."

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are no different.

The bombers who blew up Madrid's rail system in 2004, injuring 192 people and wounded 2,050, financed their operation by selling hashish.

"Hashish from the Middle East, heroin from. . .Afghanistan and Pakistan, cocaine, it all at some point goes through the hands of terrorists on its way down to the street. All of it," Thompson said.

The basic training for al-Qaeda recruits includes at least four major components: handling firearms, making bombs, ideological reinforcement, "and supporting yourself through credit-card fraud," said Thompson.

He points to ex-Montrealer Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of trying to blow up Los Angeles airport on New Year's Eve 1999.

Ressam also planned to set up a side business to help fund his terrorist jihad.

"He was going to try and set up a shop so they could access people's credit cards and start counterfeiting them."

An RCMP spokesman sought to clarify Zaccardelli's remarks late Monday.

Sgt. Paul Marsh said the commissioner meant to say that terrorists use organized crime "methods" to raise money.

However, Zaccardelli referred at least three times during his Senate appearance to terrorists working with organized crime "groups."