B.C. Premier Eby pushes federal government to adopt RICO-style organized crime laws

Premier David Eby says the B.C. government has stretched provincial laws about as far as they can go to combat organized crime, and he now wants the federal government to enact laws similar to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — commonly known as RICO — used in the United States.

"I'll be blunt: currently in Canada, I do not believe that we have the full capacities we need to attack organized crime," Eby said Friday.

America's RICO law was created under President Richard Nixon in 1970 to give police and prosecutors new tools to go after the leaders of criminal organizations who previously managed to keep themselves far enough removed from actual crimes to evade prosecution. The laws expand who can be held responsible for a pattern of racketeering within an organization and add new penalties, including a maximum of 20 years in prison for a RICO violation. A "pattern of racketeering" must involve two instances in the past 10 years.

Eby pointed to these laws as a reason for the FBI's success in investigating India-based transnational organized crime linked to extortion and shootings in B.C. The joint "Operation Hard Ball" investigation between law enforcement in the U.S., Europe and Canada led to the arrest of 24 people, 11 of whom were in California. Several more remain wanted.

"It is much easier for the FBI to do these kinds of investigations than it is for the RCMP," Eby said.

The B.C. government is moving to seize property involved through civil forfeiture, but any changes to create a RICO-type law in Canada would require federal action. Eby plans to bring the issue up at the upcoming Council of the Federation and First Ministers meetings.

Independent MLA Elenore Sturko, a former RCMP officer, supports creating RICO-type laws in Canada. She argues that international investigations are more successful when countries' laws align enough for types of crimes and disclosure rules to match. However, she urges Eby and federal counterparts to examine recent failed prosecutions of transnational organized crime, pointing to the RCMP's E-Nationalize and E-Pirate cases that failed to secure convictions.

"We've actually not been very successful as a country at successful prosecutions of major transnational crimes," Sturko said. She also emphasizes that resources must exist to conduct these complex investigations and prosecutions. "You can write all the laws and the books that you want, but unless you actually have the physical mechanisms, the people, the courtrooms, the experts, the technology investments that they need to make it happen, then they still won't be effective," she said.