Lethal Exports: B.C. gangsters at the centre of a global drug trade
The investigation found Canadians at the top of the transnational smuggling chain, basing themselves in places like Vietnam and Taiwan to avoid arrest back home. And their illegal enterprises are having a devastating impact in poorer Pacific countries like Fiji.
https://vancouversun.com/feature/lethal-exports-bc-gangsters-global-drug-trade
Rival gangs working together
So which criminal organizations are suspected of being behind the record drug shipments?
Police in both Australia and New Zealand wouldn’t comment in detail about the seizures because suspects are before the courts in both countries. No one has been charged in Canada though investigations continue.
When Vince Ramos went to prison in California, there was a void in the criminals’ encrypted communications market. At its peak, his company, Phantom Secure, had sold 14,000 phones to Australian bikies and other criminals here. So police stepped in and created a new app called ANØM that was loaded onto devices sold to unwitting Phantom Secure customers and other underworld figures. For more than two years, messages between some of the highest-level international criminals were monitored before hundreds of arrests were made in 2021.