Toronto Star Referrer

The not-so-nice ‘woke’ criminals

Peter Edwards

Nick Nero was part of the Wolfpack Alliance, a band of mostly tech-savvy, mostly millennial, criminals from across Canada who hooked up with Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar Sinaloa cartel as its leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán expanded drug routes and money laundering north into Canada.

Wolfpack members consider themselves woke. Unlike many old criminal groups, they don’t discriminate by ethnicity. They also aren’t judgmental about physical challenges and one of the leaders uses a wheelchair.

That doesn’t make them nice people, however. They share an overwhelming sense of entitlement. That includes what they feel is their right to use guns and hitmen to eliminate enemies and further their business interests, including inside the GTA. That explains why Nero is now serving a life term for first-degree murder.

I was fortunate to work on this book with Luis Horacio Na jera, who earned his master of global affairs from the University of Toronto, where he studied the effects of the internet on organized crime behaviour. Before that, Luis had one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable, as a reporter for the newspaper Grupo Reforma based in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where his beat was gun smuggling, corruption and the drug trade.

Cartel threats drove him to Canada, where he bravely channelled his knowledge to co-author “The Wolfpack,” the first major book that focuses on the links between Canadian and Mexican organized crime.

INSIGHT

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2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

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