Western Canada is home to four criminal organizations considered high-level threats to national security, according to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.
The federal agency released its 2024 Public Report on Organized Crime, which contains data from law enforcement across the country.
The report found that “organized crime remains a preeminent threat to Canada’s security, contributing to thousands of deaths annually from overdoses due to illicit drugs, as well as firearms and gang violence.”
Nearly half, 45% of Organized Crime Groups are “assessed to operate beyond their base provinces. OCGs engaged in criminal activity in provinces beyond their base primarily originate from and operate within Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec.”
These groups are said to be involved in multiple and diverse illicit markets which cooperate with transnational networks.
While the agency did not address these high-level threat groups by name, its descriptions of two western gangs appear similar to the B.C.-based Wolfpack gang alliance and the United Nations gang.
The report noted that one of those gangs has a reach which extends throughout the Americas and Europe, and is “involved in fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, money laundering, homicide and intimidation/extortion.”
Another of the B.C. groups has ties to crime networks in the Caribbean, Europe and Oceania.
“It is involved in cocaine, methamphetamine, firearms, fraud, vehicle theft, money laundering, homicide, and intimidation. It has direct contact with transnational drug trafficking organizations who supply drugs and help coordinate logistics,” reads the report.
The third B.C. criminal organization deemed high-risk has a network across the continent and into Asia.
“It is involved in cocaine, fentanyl, precursor chemicals, cannabis, fraud, money laundering, loansharking, bookmaking, and intimidation/extortion,” reads the report. “It uses individuals with specialized skills, using a hierarchy of roles depending on the specific job to optimize the group’s overall proficiency.”
The agency described the fourth group as having leaders currently in custody with the widest scope of connections “to various countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.”
“It is involved in fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, firearms, money laundering, homicide, and intimidation. Despite the incarceration of several key members, it continues to operate at a high level, indicating that its operational redundancies are firmly in place,” it said.
CISC also mentioned three additional organized crime groups based in Central Canada, which topped its list of the 668 gangs assessed in the 2024 report.
According to the intelligence agency, these groups also met the high-level threat threshold of operating “highly capable, entrenched networks. They are involved in multiple criminal activities and have redundancies built into their operations to withstand market disruptions or fluctuations.”
“They exploit their networks and connections, both domestic and international, to maximize profits and extend their influence.”
Other groups were categorized as being medium and low-level threats, including 128 that presented a medium-level threat, with the remaining 533 deemed to be low-level.
However, the groups assessed only account for a fraction of the more than 4,000 criminal organizations believed to be currently operating in Canada.
The assessed groups “include a combined 12,075 criminal actors operating throughout the country, many of whom interact within more than one group. Extrapolating involvement to account for the number of unassessed (groups), criminal involvement could potentially currently consist of more than 70,000 individuals,” reads the report.
Groups involved in manufacturing synthetic drugs have nearly doubled since last year, from 51 to 99 in 2024.
Within that cohort, a third “are also involved in importing, highlighting the dependence of acquiring precursor chemicals from other source countries (primarily China) to domestically produce fentanyl and methamphetamine.”
The growing shift to the synthetic drug market is partly tied to record-low cocaine prices. These clandestine labs primarily operate out of B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.