Thank you, Mr. Chair and everyone here, and a special thanks to Dona. We have a long and very important history that brings us here today.
My name is Doug Kiloh. I have over 30 years of experience in policing, and I'm presently in charge of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit for British Columbia. There are some reinforcing themes here, but I'll try to pick up speed on them, Mr. Chair.
Law enforcement in British Columbia has responded to the increased violence exhibited by street and mid-level gangs, as well as continuing to investigate more complex organized crime targets in the province of British Columbia. As was said, we have over 130 criminal groups in various stages of development and activity. Over the last few years, the adaptation by and violence of some of those groups has required equally adaptive law and policing tactics.
For public safety, our adaptations have included the development of a uniform gang task force, which is right in their face, on the street, finding them where they're at, as well as focusing the larger investigative teams on the worst public safety threat we see. For example, I'm sure you'll hear of the following investigations from the panel in Vancouver: Projects Rebellion, EPARAGON, EPESETA, and EPACEMAN. They are some of the large investigations that have had a significant impact on gangs and organized crime.
Intelligence gathering and enforcement actions continue to target several high-ranking Middle Eastern, independent, outlaw motorcycle gang, and Asian organized crime groups and their associates. They're obviously involved in a myriad of offences—murder and numerous acts of violence—largely committed by lower-level associates and drawn in by the higher level, embroiled in retaliation for drug rips, as has been stated. But there are also relationship issues within these organizations that cause this violence and them to fall apart.
All have access to firearms and routinely utilize body armour or armoured vehicles and may have access to, or are involved in the trafficking of, weapons. Many of the shootings, assaults, kidnappings, and extortions are carried out overtly without regard to public safety, which has probably driven us here today.
Fraud, international smuggling of monetary instruments, and money laundering is well in excess of $100 million out of this province. Importation, exportation, production, manufacturing, and distribution of synthetic and other drugs fuel this activity...[Inaudible--Editor]...to make it viable. They are also involved in international smuggling of people, and I believe you heard from some of the panellists earlier that the production of extremely non-genuine supporting documents is also prevalent.
Structurally in British Columbia, we're linking municipal, provincial, and federal resources through the integrated teams. For example, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, the integrated gang task force, the outlaw motorcycle gang unit, and a new firearms unit being developed out of the core funding that was spoken of earlier are all coming together and having closer ties, so we can have specific, pointed investigations where we can get the best bang for our dollar.
CFSEU will have all the police agencies in British Columbia involved in its governance, direction, and actions to combat the spectrum of organized criminal activity. These units have a footprint across the province. I'll mention again that we'll be opening two CFSEU offices, one in Kelowna and one in Prince George, because of the issues in the northern and central parts of the province. We already have one in Victoria. This won't take away from other local, provincial, or federal responsibilities, but will ensure that the complete spectrum of criminal activity is subject to a coordinated enforcement body focused on the specific threats. And I think that's a key component. We can't leave one area and focus on another. In other words, we can't focus on just one specific area; we have to focus on the complete spectrum.
We have clear designs on continuing our enforcement focus in that way to increase public safety by targeting the violent groups at the earliest opportunity through predictive intelligence models and utilizing both covert and overt tactics. We must continue to support local, provincial, and national direction to disrupt and dismantle the organizations, from the street level to high-end sophisticated groups. Again, to reinforce this point, if we stop enforcing laws on one part of the spectrum, it allows the activity to flourish.
We're continuing the local, provincial, federal, and international law enforcement efforts through our intelligence and our intelligence sharing. It's better than it has ever been. Is it perfect? No. Do we have a long way to go? Yes. We have to increase the analysis both at the local police department or detachment level as well as throughout all of the specialty units and develop better protocols and quicker sharing in that regard so that the intelligence can be utilized.
We have to develop anti-gang initiatives to prevent youth from joining, and provide options to those who want to leave the gang lifestyle. I think there's a real shortfall in Canada at this point, for us to do that--certainly in our area.
We have to continue to educate not only law enforcement and the young law enforcement officers coming in, but the public and you as politicians, about the insidious nature of organized crime and how much of a grip it really does have on our society and the violence that spins out of that. We have to have more empirical research—and it's very limited here—in the areas of organized crime and gang activity. We have to continue to support the modernization of the Criminal Code, lawful access changes, and change in evidentiary rules to allow us to do that. There are huge bureaucratic slowdowns for us to actually do our job.
Thank you.