La Familia, Fort MacMurray

Law enforcement believes that the notorious gang with ties to the Mexican cartels La Familia has expanded into Alberta, and even into Fort MacMurray. The gang has been active in Edmonton, and their president was recently arrested and law enforcement teams seized cash, drugs, and weapons in large amounts. According to Mike Tucker, the spokesperson for ALERT “Our information suggests that La Familia was very active and aggressive in trying to establish drug distribution channels in Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Lloydminster, Drayton Valley and Red Deer. When you have them trying to enter new markets, there’s going to be an inherent conflict with groups that are already operating. They’re based in Edmonton and they were supplying markets in Fort McMurray,” he said. “The follow-up to our investigation will be working with our teams across the province and our policing partners to investigate those active drug lines that they worked to establish.”

The expansion of the La Familia gang is no surprise. Tucker stated “There’s a very strong demand and market for drugs throughout the province, and obviously, Fort McMurray’s no exception, with the oil jobs up there and people having a lot of disposable income. What we’ve seen is a variety of groups competing for those profits, for those dollars. Will this eliminate cocaine supply in Fort McMurray? No, not at all. But what it might do is it might help stem and control some of that drug violence as groups battle over the rights to that. There’s only a couple things you’d use a weapon for like that, and our belief is that they were prepared for what would be percieved to be … conflicts over turf. fFve kilos of cocaine … that’s nothing to the cartels, but getting those guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals, that’s huge for us.”