An undercover Mountie on Yellowknife's drug-dealing gangs

After several recent drug busts and concerns that gang activity is on the rise in Yellowknife, CBC North's Hilary Bird sought to find out how much the local police know about such activity. 

RCMP Sgt. Dean Riou runs the Northwest Territories' Federal Investigations Unit, and works undercover in Yellowknife.

He spoke to CBC North's Hilary Bird about why and how gangs set up shop in Yellowknife.

The following interview has been edited and condensed.

What does the gang scene look like up here?

It depends on what a gang is. We've got lots of different drug networks or cells operating together. The Criminal Code defines a gang as three or more people acting in concert together to commit a criminal activity, so if you go by that definition there's quite a few groups that would meet that definition in Yellowknife.

How many gangs or 'drug networks' would you suspect are in the city?

It's hard to say because it fluctuates at any given time. I think between five and 10 groups at any given time would be reasonable.

Are they mostly from out of town?

Some of them, certainly, have originated from out of town but then they'll recruit local people to work with them. We've got groups from B. C. who have been very high profile in the press as well as groups from Edmonton which you saw in last week's arrest.

Tell us about the '856' gang? How long have they been around?

They've been in town now for two to three years, off and on again. As far as we know, after our latest arrests in July, they don't have much of a presence in town at the moment. Enforcement action that we've done as well as enforcement action in Whitehorse has certainly weakened their presence in Northern Canada. Our latest investigation and information is that they are not in town.

• RELATED | Who is the 856 gang that's moved into Yellowknife?

They have a large presence in the correctional centre now. Some of those people will be released in the next few months and we'll see if they return back to B. C. or if the group sends in another crew.

Were '856' the big players in Yellowknife?

They were certainly high profile due to some activities that they were engaged in. Whether they were the biggest players in town ... At one point I would have said yes but at other points over the last few years, I would have said no.

Not every group has a label or a name. Some prefer the anonymity. Some prefer to broadcast their names out there and use it as a marketing strategy.

Why do you think gangs choose Yellowknife?

Any city that has a demand for a commodity, someone's going to come in and fill that demand. Unfortunately Yellowknife has a high demand for cocaine and there is always going to be somebody or a group of somebodies that is going to come and fill that void.

How do gangs get started in Yellowknife?

It's common for them to recruit local people. Individual people from the community that are drug dealers will attach themselves to a larger network either for protection or to get their supply cheaper through that group. Once the 856 were established, every time we took enforcement action or they felt pressure they would just send in new people and there would be a bit of overlap and the new people would get trained by the people that were already here.

For a city our size do we have a lot of gangs or drug networks?

Drug networks? Absolutely. Gang activity in the traditional sense? Not so much. It's more the drugs. More the profit. These groups are very profit-driven.

In a traditional sense, gangs exist to have conflict with other gangs. There's other activities like purse snatching, initiations. We don't see that in Yellowknife. They basically come up here to sell drugs and make money.

So you don't see much rivalry or violence between different drug networks up here?

No. (Knock on wood.) There have been some incidents both reported and unreported to police that we hear about from our contacts. Overall, they get along quite well at the moment.