Someone will fill vacuum left by Vikings bust, says MUN expert

This week's big Vikings bust will slow gang activity in St. John's, but it's not going to stop it, says an organized crime expert atMemorial University.

• Vikings MC affiliated with Hells Angels, police say in wake of Project Bombard

Albert Jones, who teaches a class on organized crime at MUN, told the St. John's Morning Show that the arrests have interrupted the supply, not the demand.

"If you go out of business and you own a store at the malland I see that you're out of business but there's still a market, I'm going to rent your store and I'm going to start selling," he said. "Once there's a vacuum in a market, there's somebody who's going to go into it."

Not all are criminals

There's an attraction to the mystique of biker culture that doesn't just come from criminals, he pointed out, with motorcycles longglamorizedin popular culture, fromMarlonBrando inThe Wild OnethroughEasy Riderto hit TV seriesSons of Anarchy.

"I know some people who have ridden with what you maycall an outlaw motorcycle gang," he said. "They're not involved in crime. It's the mystique.Sons of Anarchy. I call it theEasy Ridersyndrome. They're attracted to it and they like to ride motorcycles."

Two non-Vikings members were arrested, described as "associates" of the gangby police, including a physician, Dr. BrendanHollohan. Jones said the lure of easy money is often a draw for non-gang members.

"Profit. Easy money. No tax," he said. "If you purchase a narcotic, I've never heard of anyone getting a receipt. (No) return policy and certainly no Air Miles."

But criminal organizations are often structured in much the same waycorporations are, similarly dividing operations into different departments.

There's a reason they're called 'organizations'

"Somebody can be responsible for narcotics, another for money-laundering. Another may want to control a territoryor a commodity," said Jones. "But it's all structuredand based on the market, just like any other product, any other business."

He said the members of the Vikings organization are probably not from the board room.

"If you sell narcotics, those narcotics have to come from somewhere," he said. "How does it get here? Who obtains it?"

It takes a lot of organization to get drugs to Newfoundland and Labrador, he said, recalling one organization in the province that had its operations traced to a drug lord in Mexico.

"We seem to think in Newfoundland that we're isolated and insulated from criminal organizations, but in fact organizations have been here for quite some time," he said, adding that biker gangs have been operating in Newfoundland since the '70s.

"Wherever there's a market, wherever money can be made, and that market is illicit, you will find criminal organizations. That's what they thrive on."