Organized Crime

SAN DIEGO - A Canadian man who sold encrypted BlackBerry smartphones to criminals worldwide that enabled them to sell drugs and even plan murders while avoiding the prying eyes of law enforcement was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison. (CTV)

For years, Xiao Ai Rong and her husband Kwei Chiu Chan have run bawdy houses and illicit drug labs out of rental properties in Vancouver, according to the B.C. government. (Vancouver Sun)

BRUSSELS - Latin American drug lords have sent bumper shipments of cocaine to Europe in recent weeks, including one in a cargo of squid, even though the coronavirus epidemic has stifled legitimate transatlantic trade, senior anti-narcotics officials say. (The Province)

A large quantity of cocaine seized in Vermont, believed to have been the motive behind an elderly couple being kidnapped and smuggled from New York to Quebec in September, was allegedly destined for the Hells Angels. (Montreal Gazette)

A businessman “connected to Asian organized crime” was allowed by a British Columbia government employee to buy part of a B.C. Lottery Corp.casino, according to a confidential RCMP report obtained by Global News. (Global News)

VANCOUVER - The woman dressed in a burqa carefully clutching her purse boarded the Canada Line SkyTrain at the Bridgeport station in Richmond, B.C. Underneath the disguise was Knowah Truth Ferguson, a Hamilton man just two months past his 18th birthday. Inside the purse was a .45-calibre gun and a Glock pistol. (Hamilton Spectator)

It used to be in the parliamentary system that an MP would step aside if he was under investigation. If that member refused to step aside,  typically the party leader would demand a resignation until the cloud of suspicion was lifted or not as the case may be. (True North)

The investigation into top RCMP civilian official Cameron Ortis began with a shadowy, multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based company run by Canadians that sold encrypted cellphones to drug traffickers and money launderers around the world. (CBC)

BOSTON –  Former New England Mafia boss Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme was unrepentant Thursday as he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 killing of a nightclub owner, declaring that the "real story" will come out one day. (Fox News)

Try as they might, the owners of a Hells Angels clubhouse in Welland aren't getting their building back. The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a Superior Court ruling from 2017 that ordered the gang's fortress at 855 Darby Rd. to be seized, alongside a swath of Hells Angels paraphernalia. (CBC)