One Face of Northern Idaho Organized Crime

Whitecaps' April 7, 2007, post titled The (non)Faces of Organized Crime in Northern Idaho observed:

Organized crime is not a caricature of some real or fictional man or woman. Organized crime is patterns of behavior designed to accumulate huge amounts of money and other valuable assets, legally when possible, illegally when necessary or when it would be more profitable, violently when subtlety fails or is inconvenient.

That doesn't mean organized crime in northern Idaho doesn't have a face. It means it can have many faces.

In an online article dated April 23, 2007, and headlined Cigarette smuggling case winds down, The Spokesman-Review staff writer Bill Morlin puts a "face" on one lucrative northern Idaho criminal enterprise.

Morlin's article reveals something else, something that should send a jolt of paralyzing fear through the veins of other north Idaho residents and public officials whose greed has seduced them into criminal enterprise: The feds know northern Idaho is fertile ground for organized crime, and they're paying attention. Very close attention.

There were many details in Morlin's story that make that last point.

• The cases didn't go to trial. The defendants pleaded guilty. If you're guilty, your best hope is to become a cooperating witness before being arrested. If you're guilty and are arrested, guilty pleas almost always yield a better outcome than going to trial against overwhelming evidence.
• Washington State estimates it lost approximately $56 million in tax revenue in the criminal enterprise. This was not small potatoes crime.
• The criminal enterprise was run out of a home near Plummer, Idaho, population fewer than 1,000 people. Organized crime is not a big-city phenomenon. It's in rural areas, too.
• The predicate crimes: Trafficking in contraband cigarettes; money laundering; mail fraud; interstate transportation in aid of racketeering; cigarette record-keeping violations.

It was especially significant to see that the guilty pleas were also for conspiracy to violate the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The predicate crimes noted can be investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate US Attorney's office in their respective judicial districts, however a RICO prosecution requires oversight and approval from an Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Prosecution under RICO clearly demonstrates to all who care to see that organized crime in northern Idaho is on a very large radar screen.

It may also surprise some people to note the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not named as one of the investigating agencies. This organized crime enterprise was very successfully investigated by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.