MONTREAL – Law enforcement is about to get tougher on three of organized crime’s biggest money-making machines: gambling, prostitution and drugs.
The Conservative government has broadened the definition of a “serious offence” under organized-crime legislation in an effort to prosecute and punish those groups’ most lucrative activities.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced the changes at a news conference Wednesday. He said the new rules focus on things currently not considered serious offences, like book-making and bawdy houses.
“What I’ve been told by law-enforcement agents and provincial authorities is we should get all the offences included,” Nicholson told The Canadian Press in an interview.
“It gets them all, so that if a person involved in any type of illegal activity, if they’re involved in organized crime, it gets caught within the serious offences provision.”
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“What we find is that if you’re into illegal gaming, if you’re into prostitution, many times this is the currency of organized crime.”

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