Squinting to differentiate faces through salty fog, police found both high school students standing alongside older gang members in the ferry lineup at Swartz Bay. They were intending to board a boat to the mainland. Only one youth was successfully retrieved by the officers, because the other child was not yet reported as missing. A later Lower Mainland knife fight involving the recently recruited boy and his newfound gang resulted in police apprehending the unreported teen; he was sent back to Vancouver Island and into the arms of his caregivers.
Gang initiation leads to Victoria children being lured off school fields and young adults being coaxed from local bars. According to police, there are gangs operating in the city on provincial, national, and international levels. In a recent Statistics Canada report, Victoria ranks higher than Vancouver for number of drug offenses per capita. A Freedom of Information request to the Victoria Police Department revealed gang incidents in the city and nearby locations increased from 18 in to 41 in At least five major organized crime groups currently operate in Victoria.
The ocean fails to separate Vancouver Island from mainland influence, and gang presence has easily infiltrated the city. The unit is focused primarily on the West Coast and has an office in Victoria. For instance, the Victoria Police Department issued a crime report on Jan. The home was used to process, store, and sell illegal drugs. Copious amounts of methamphetamine and heroin were found in the home, and six individuals were arrested. That report refers to just one of many major gang-affiliated drug seizures that have taken place recently in the Greater Victoria area.
Two men, Zach Matheson and Ali Arash Zaire, were arrested: both were high-profile drug dealers with connections to powerful criminal groups. According to Houghton, Victoria provides an extensive customer base for drugs, which is the main commodity for gangs. Geographically, the island is ideal for drug transportation, as small watercraft are used to export and import drugs between Vancouver Island and the U.
Furthermore, existing mainland gangs have employees who work on Vancouver Island, holding drug houses in various locations around the Greater Victoria Area. Houghton compared a budding gang to the planting of a seed.
