Gangs Infiltrate Canada’s Airports – Provide Breeding Ground For International Terrorism

Organized gangs and smugglers are infiltrating Canada’s biggest airports, providing a breeding ground for international terrorism, critics say, citing information from a recently revealed federal police investigation.

A two-year probe by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP, the country’s national policing agency, shows that 58 organized gangs are smuggling drugs into the country’s airports, including Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Many of the gang members are airport employees, including baggage handlers and customs agents, who have used their security clearances to thwart the law.

The findings shatter widespread notions that airport security has been significantly bolstered since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, according to some of Canada’s leading national security experts. It’s also angered lawmakers, who say previous warnings have gone unheeded.

“This report should certainly rattle Canadians and even those beyond our borders,” says Sen. Colin Kenny, who was appointed to lead the Canadian senate committee on national security and defense after the 9/11 attacks. “Where you see organized crime taking place, you have a fertile ground for terrorism.”

A 22-page declassified summary of the investigation was leaked to Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper last week.

Although the RCMP’s report didn’t focus directly on terrorism, it warned that airports compromised by criminal activity could easily be exploited by sophisticated terror groups. “Staff can be bribed to ignore criminality or paid large sums to assist in drug trafficking or theft,” the RCMP report concludes.

The RCMP says a criminal record is no barrier to landing an airport job. The agency also says technological impediments and a lack of resources hampers federal officials from sharing employee information with police that would allow for better employee screening.

Pierre Perron, the RCMP’s director of criminal intelligence, says he hopes that the report will provide an impetus for agencies to work together more effectively. “Ultimately, we see this as a good news story,” he says. “It will allow us to find ways to close those gaps.”

Similar shortcomings were pinpointed six years ago in a report penned by Senator Kenny’s committee, which found that passenger inspection had been tightened but security remained “flimsy” behind the scenes. Most notably, ground crews were not being scrutinized with the same rigor applied to passengers. The RCMP report confirmed this, finding that fewer than 1 percent of employees assigned to high-security areas are screened either on their way in or out of the airport. Kenny says workers should be inspected just like passengers.

via  Yahoo News.