Reflect on the comparison between pirates and modern organized crime. In your opinion, did pirates set a precedent for OC in Canada or is this assertion to simplistic?

Pre-Nineteenth Century: Pirates and Privateers off the Atlantic Coast AND PRIVATEERS OFF THE ATLANTIC COAST

• Great age of piracy in the Atlantic coincided with the colonization of the New World between the 15th & 18th centuries
• Targets: theft of gold & silver from Spanish ships, French barrels of wine, English cargoes of cured fish, & valuable Canadian fur pelts
• Early coastal colonies were also raided by pirates
• Pirates (worked independently) vs. Privateers (worked for the sovereign or government)
• Newfoundland: epicentre for early piracy (16th & 17th centuries)
• Nova Scotia: epicentre for privateering (late 18th/early 19th centuries)
• Pirate ships required a high level of organization & reflect many modern OC traits
  • Multiple offenders (large crews & recruitment of sailors)
  • Division of labour: captain, officers, navigator, prize master, etc.
  • Continuity/continuing enterprise
  • Serious illegal acts (theft, extortion, kidnapping)
  • Use of violence & intimidation
  • Rules & regulations
  • Ties to elites for protection

• Organized crimes included:
  • Theft (banks, trains, households, cattle)
  • Smuggling (cattle, consumer goods, people, opium)
  • Counterfeiting (currency)
  • Whiskey trade (e.g., Fort Whoop-Up)
  • Gambling & sex trade (esp. during construction of national railways)
  • Drug trade (tariffs on opium led to smuggling & illegal trafficking)
• Economic crimes included:
  • Railroad construction was a magnet for the unscrupulous: stock manipulation, land speculation, appropriation of government funds, price inflation, fraudulent contracts
  • Politicians benefited from bribes, gift of stock, & blatant conflict of interest
  • 1883: price-fixing agreements involving fire insurance companies, cotton manufacturers, & wholesale grocers were uncovered.
  • Gold-mining companies involved in stock manipulation, avoidance of royalty payments, smuggling, & “salting” finds

Late 19th / Early 20th Century: The Genesis of Modern OC

• Increased organization of sex trade (“white slave trade”)
• Illegal drug trade caused by criminalization of heroin in 1908 & increased demand due to morphine addicted soldiers returning from WWI
• Gambling & bookmaking now continental (due to wire service)
• Canada part of continental gambling syndicates
• First signs of Italian OC in Canada
  • Secret societies
  • Black Hand extortion
• Unprecedented growth of urban centres in North America
  • Massive influx of immigrants
  • Conditions to promote criminality: poverty, racism/discrimination, corruption, numerous vices to satisfy, existing black markets
  • Early gangs were ethnically homogeneous; membership restricted to similar ethnic origin
• What Italian, Jewish, Irish, & Chinese immigrants had in common:
  • All came from countries where there was a suspicion, mistrust, & antipathy for the state, police, & law enforcement
  • “Ethnic” immigrants were the poorest of the poor
  • Lured to North America with promises of riches, & instead were subjected to intense racism & discrimination (no jobs, & relegated to slums)

Prohibition: 1920 to 1933

• Single most important impetus for modern-day OC in North America
• Launched crime towards an unprecedented level of organization, power, wealth, corruption, violence, & sophistication
• Local neighbourhood gangs blossomed into citywide groups & then into regional organizations, with international ties
• Showed that consensual crimes (supplying the public with outlawed goods & services) was preferable over predatory crimes
• Proved the state cannot outlaw people’s vices (instead they are satisfied through black markets)
• American Prohibition a catalyst to Canadian OC
• Canada was the main supplier of booze to dry America (& helped cement future ties with American OC)

The 1930s to the 1980s: The Ascendance of the Italian Mafia

• Period following the repeal of Prohibition witnessed a meteoric expansion of Italian-American OC in North America
• Great Depression: racketeers were the dispensers of dreams & escapism in the form of gambling, drugs, & sex
• Charles (Lucky) Luciano: Different parts of New York City & North America parceled out to different Italian crime families
• Over the next 40 years, mafia families in New York & Michigan would dominate OC in Ontario & Quebec
• Criminal activities: smuggling, heroin trafficking, gambling, bookmaking, extortion, theft, telemarketing fraud, counterfeiting, business & labour racketeering

The Trade in “Illegal Drugs”

• 1960s
  • Psychedelic era” promotes illegal drug sales; drug trafficking surpasses gambling as the biggest money-maker in the criminal underworld
  • Most popular drugs: marijuana, LSD, & heroin
  • Escalation of the drug trade heralded new lucrative era for criminal entrepreneurs & gangs
• 1970s & 1980s Colombian Cocaine “Cartels”
  • Cocaine becomes drug of choice
  • Colombia emerges as global centre for cocaine trafficking
  • Medellin & Cali cartels revolutionize drug trafficking:
    • Sophisticated, transnational, corporate structure
    • Vertical integration of the cocaine business
    • Fluid network, made up of semi-autonomous cells, each of which handled a particular function within the cartel
  • Canada: cocaine makes billions for mafia, outlaw motorcycle gangs, West End Gang, & other domestic wholesalers

• Emerging trends in OC in North America
  • Proliferation of criminal groups that rival Italian OC, such as Outlaw biker gangs & Chinese criminal networks
  • Mafia-style criminal groups became transnational
  • Criminal groups become more sophisticated in criminal activities & use of technology
  • Re-emergence of predatory crimes (theft, fraud, racketeering, human trafficking, cyber-crimes)
  • Canada emerges as source country for drugs (synthetic & marijuana), mass marketing fraud, counterfeiting

Conclusion: What Does History Tell Us about Canadian Organized Crime

• OC in Canada spans more than 500 years & is a part of some of this country’s historical developments & institutions
• OC is not foreign to Canadian culture, but a part of it
• OC is historically resilient because it is rooted in the institutions & cultures of the societies it inhabits
• OC has a symbiotic relationship with Canada & Canadians:
  • there is significant demand for outlawed goods & services
  • governments create policies that help OC endure
  • long-standing social forces—poverty, racism, & inequality— help create the preconditions for (organized) criminality